Skip to main content
The final straw?
Starmer’s unseemly rush to the right is part of a historical pattern when Labour is in power, argues ANDREW MURRAY, but there’s no reason why politics in general should follow this trajectory
DRAWING A LINE: Anneliese Dodds, who resigned as development minister after cuts to the foreign aid budget to pay for war

IT SEEMS to be a law of British political history that every Labour government ends up further to the right than it started out, no matter what the point of departure.

Ramsay MacDonald had modest plans in 1929, but they did not include cutting unemployment benefit and forming a coalition with the Tories two years later.

Clement Attlee set out all nationalisations and health service but ended up cutting welfare to fund aggression in Korea.

Echoes of Salisbury

A winning deal

Liberation webinar, 30 November2024, 6pm (UK)
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he departs a
Eyes Left / 16 April 2025
16 April 2025
ANDREW MURRAY casts an eye over past upheavals and asks whether the left can find a fire escape before the world goes up in flames
Jonathan Reynolds 12.4.25
Britain / 12 April 2025
12 April 2025
But Business Secretary downplays prospect of full nationalisation and declines to extend emergency assistance to Port Talbot or Grangemouth
A Reform UK activist holds up a banner as party leader Nigel
Britain / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
Clothing showing an image of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer
Eyes Left / 2 April 2025
2 April 2025
ANDREW MURRAY wonders whether recent opinion polling and a fresh local authority by-election result in Ilford are an indication that the time is ripe for the left to make inroads
Similar stories
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (center) and Defence Secreta
Editorial: / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
PM+KS
Features / 7 March 2025
7 March 2025
You’ll never guess why a quick peace in Ukraine might be in the ambassador to Washington’s interests, writes SOLOMON HUGHES. Actually, of course you will – he stands to make a lot of money from his business links to Russia
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Sir K
Editorial: / 2 March 2025
2 March 2025