After three days of the election campaign, it is clear that while the prime minister will change, Britain's rotten political system will not. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are products of a system that favours the wealthy and well-connected, and their similarities outweigh their differences.
Both men are non-London southerners who came from well-paid jobs outside Westminster—Sunak in finance and Starmer in law. They became MPs only in 2015, gifted ultra-safe seats and swift promotion to the frontbench. Their careers have been marked by supportive, even slobbering press coverage, rather than the hard grind of door-to-door campaigning.
The defining images of the first week of the campaign—Sunak standing drenched in the rain, Starmer warm and prime ministerial—suggest a contrast, but the reality is different. Both are politically cautious and lack killer instincts, as evidenced by Sunak's decision to call an early election and Starmer's failure to face scrutiny over his party's internal contradictions.
On the economy, the key issue of the election, both parties are committed to practically identical budgetary rules. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that day-to-day spending on everything outside health, defence and education is promised to fall by around £20bn, regardless of who wins. This would mean cuts equivalent to shutting entire government departments.
Neither party is expected to significantly boost economic growth. Analysts at Capital Economics are not convinced that either will be responsible for a big increase in the economy's potential growth rate. The UK has been through a shockingly bad five years, with people on average worse off and taxes at a record high—and still rising.
Within a couple of years of a Starmer government, he could hit the same rapids as Sunak, and the same forces that are about to do for his enemy could then do for him. The choice between these two warlords of Westminster is no choice at all for those seeking real change.
