In December 2023 I wrote an article criticising Sir Keir Starmer for praising Margaret Thatcher in his Daily Telegraph article. The day after praising Thatcher his website took down his “ten pledges”, replaced by “404 – page not found”. His praise for Thatcher, I said, was because Labour had no plan for government. Sadly, that prediction has come true. Everyone knew adult social care was a mess. What did Wes Streeting do? “Let’s talk about it for another three years.” A mental health crisis in schools? “Erm, we’ll, erm, tinker with academies.” Climate change breaking 1.5 degrees of heating last year? “Let’s expand the airports!” Did you know that in opposition Labour got £7 million of public money every year to develop policy? It’s called Short Money, named after Newcastle MP Ted Short who introduced it in 1974. Now the Starmer-Reeves government is emulating another Tory Leader. In October 2022 Liz Truss ranted against the “anti-growth coalition”. It was their fault, she said, that her genius scheme of doing sod all to fix Britain’s problems wasn’t working. "I have three priorities for our economy: growth, growth and growth,” said Truss. “Time-wasting Nimbys and zealots” are holding us back, said Starmer in his Daily Mail article last week. The UK needs three things, said Starmer, "growth, growth, growth." Growth, Keir, comes from fixing the Gateshead flyover. From paying the money we were promised for the Tyne Bridge repairs, so people aren’t stuck in traffic for an hour each day. The Leamside Line hasn’t been delayed by regulators, it’s government pulling the funding. Is it regulations holding up the Gateshead conference Centre? Was it nimbys who stopped Gateshead Town getting promoted because the stadium lacked investment? It’s not the greenbelt stopping houses being built. Developers are sitting on land with planning permission already granted for over 1 million homes. They build when they can maximise profit. So why aren’t you funding councils, NeoLabour, to build affordable homes for rent? And don’t say we can’t afford public ownership of water. Just enforce the regulations, make them pay for the clean up, and their share prices will tumble. Then the dividends can be invested in clean water instead of sucked out to tax havens. Now, with the Heathrow expansion they’ve crossed the Rubicon into full Thatcherism. North East investment cancelled and channelled to the “Golden Triangle” of Oxford-Cambridge-London. It’s called levelling-down. Truss promised an “iron grip” on public spending. Thatcher styled herself the “iron lady”. Rachel from accounts likes her metallic metaphors too. The report she used to justify the Heathrow Project was funded by – yes, Heathrow airport, itself owned mostly by overseas governments. The Department for Transport previously rejected the report’s methodology as “not fit for purpose”, and the data was supplied by the airport itself! In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described five stages of loss. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet again a Thatcherite government is screwing over the North East. Many Labour members are coming out of denial. Like the German soldiers in the Mitchell and Webb sketch, thinking, “Are we the bad guys?” There’s still a few, mostly on the payroll, who angrily bleat, “four legs good, two legs better.” “Any Labour government is better than any Tory government.” Tell that to your Gran who’s lost her winter fuel allowance. To the third child in poverty. To the people stuck in traffic on the Tyne Bridge. To the disabled people being bullied off benefits in Stamer’s Britain. Starmer and Reeves did listen to those poor non-doms, though. Labour ministers sacked for corruption. MPs taking £££s in freebies. Most are in depression. As Orwell said in Animal Farm, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” If you’ve reached acceptance, there’s an alternative. Along with hundreds of others, I’ve set up Majority. No whips. A commitment to high standards in public life. And deliberative democracy – directly involving the public in policy development. We’re standing candidates this May in Northumberland and Durham. In 2026, we’ll be running in all the Tyne and Wear elections. If you want a better politics, visit Majorityuk.org.