Saturday 12th October marked 100 days since the Labour government led by Keir Starmer came to power. This prompted a predictable raft of media reports evaluating the progress of the Labour government in its first 100 days in office. The general consensus is that Labour has struggled to make progress in key policy areas and has often been distracted by having to respond to claims about Cabinet ministers receiving expensive gifts and by changes of personnel in Downing Street. Progress has also been hampered by the time it has taken Labour to bring forward a budget. Without clear spending plans it is difficult to present a clear policy agenda to Parliament or the public. Opinion polling commissioned to mark 100 days indicated that voters are disappointed in the government’s overall performance and Starmer’s personal approval rating is at the lowest point since he became Labour leader. In a BBC interview, Starmer himself admitted that the Government had been buffeted by ‘sidewinds’ and that being Prime Minister was ‘much tougher than anything I’ve done before’.
Aside from the, far from startling, revelation that being in government is more difficult than opposition, is there any value in judging a government’s performance after only 100 days? It is a nice round number, but 100 days has no political significance. It doesn’t represent the length of a parliamentary session and has no significance in the electoral calendar. Moreover, Labour, wisely, did not seek office by presenting the electorate with a list of things they planned to achieve in the first 100 days.
What is the political context for 100 days?
There is some historical context which perhaps provides some justification for evaluating progress after 100 days of government, but this lies across the Atlantic. Franklin D. Roosevelt became US President in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression. At his inauguration Roosevelt announced that the country faced such terrible challenges that a special session of Congress would begin immediately and would sit for three months in order to address these problems with some urgency.
There followed an unprecedented period of legislative activity. Congress passed more than 70 Bills, including 15 major pieces of legislation in three months, many of them providing federal emergency relief to those suffering the effects of the economic crisis and in the process expanding, in some cases in perpetuity, the reach and significance of the federal government of the USA.
Significantly, however, although he instituted this rapid and dramatic expansion of the role of the federal government, Roosevelt did not promise to turn around the country’s fortunes in 100 days. Indeed, he only used the term ‘100 days’ later when referring back to this period.
Can we compare Starmer and Roosevelt’s 100 days?
Roosevelt’s achievements were certainly significant. Whole books have been written on the first 100 days of the first Roosevelt administration. In contrast, as one UK newspaper observed, the first 100 days of Starmer’s premiership will soon be forgotten.
There are however some good reasons why we should not compare the two. The context is obviously different. While Starmer clearly inherited a difficult economic situation, we are not currently living through another Great Depression. Moreover, many of the levers of state support put in place by the Roosevelt administration have existed in the UK for decades, and in some cases were already in place before Roosevelt came to power in the US. Although some might disagree, there is no need for a burst of legislative activity to fundamentally remake the UK welfare state.
Perhaps more significantly, Starmer has had relatively little time to drive forward his legislative agenda. The 73rd Congress of the United States sat in almost continuous session from the day of Roosevelt’s inauguration on 4 March to 15 June 1933. In contrast, the UK general election took place on 4 July, just before Parliament was scheduled to head into its summer recess. Parliament returned on 5th July, but the first six days of the new session were taken up by the swearing in of members. Labour’s term in office began in earnest with the State Opening of Parliament on the 17th July. However, Parliament went into its summer recess ten days later on 30 July. Parliament returned on 2nd September and sat for two weeks (a total of 8 days) before going into a three-week recess for the Party conference season. By the time Labour had reached 100 days in office, Parliament had sat for just 22 days since the State Opening of the new session. There has simply not been enough time to pass significant legislation in that period.
Unsurprisingly not a single Bill has yet been passed by Parliament in the current session. There are currently 66 Bills before Parliament, although the majority of these are Private Members’ Bills which won’t make it onto the statute books. Only 17 Government Bills are currently making their way through Parliament. Some of these are significant but it will be some time before we can evaluate the impact of the Great British Energy Bill, the removal of hereditary peers or the return of the railways to public ownership.
Given the limited opportunities for Government to legislate and Parliament to scrutinise, it is perhaps not surprising that the media have focused so heavily on things taking place beyond Westminster including donations, disagreements at party conference and the Government’s response to the summer riots. There is of course, always something to write about, but the 100 days tag is not a particularly useful milestone against which to measure the progress of the UK Government.