Labour 100 Days in office: “Things have not gone according to plan”

Politics expert Dr Steve McCabe gives his analysis on Labour’s first one hundred days in office.

Transcript

00:00Gosh, well, Labour came with such a wave of optimism, although, of course, it wasn't like

00:071997 when Blair had that genuine groundswell of the desire for change by the electorate.

00:13Remember, of course, that Labour, despite the huge majority they got, it was more as

00:18a consequence of the Tories losing support, being so dunny, if you like, and losing marginal

00:24seats that they might otherwise have gained under reform. I think Labour would have won

00:28anyway, but it has been described as a sort of a loveless sort of landslide. So they've

00:32got in, there is a desire for things to get better, but quite clearly, so Labour sort

00:37of got embroiled in lots of issues. I think the pension issue, or at least the fuel allowance

00:44being taken away from most old age pensioners, apart from those on pension credit, that's

00:50done a lot of damage. There's a whole set of issues of what will come out of the budget,

00:55which, of course, is later on this month. Then, of course, we've had the sort of the

00:58sideshow, Sue Gray, and, of course, the internal divisions, all of this within the first hundred

01:04days, which, of course, is normally regarded as the honeymoon period. But, of course, the

01:08fact is they've got four and a half to five years, whenever the election may be, to sort

01:14things out. So it will settle down. The issue that Labour have got, of course, is the main

01:21opposition will continue to be, for as far as we can see, the Conservative Party. And

01:27whoever they select, whether it's sort of Cammy Bednock or sort of Robert Jenrick, they

01:31are less popular currently, according to the opinion polls, than sort of the man that got

01:36rid of Rishi Sunak. Now, of course, there's all sorts of arguments about sort of will

01:40they sort of make the next election, but we don't know. That's the sort of question that

01:43remains unanswered. Things have not gone according to plan, and dare I say it, for the Labour

01:48Party. I hope that things can only get better. But, hey, politics is nothing if not sort

01:53of a feet-free brawl. And, of course, anything could happen, and we sort of wait to see.