Davos: elitist, out of touch, pro-capitalist – just the right image for Labour

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves flew to the ski resort chatfest in search of respectability, writes John Rentoul

Starmer’s priority is to project respectability, reassurance, competence and no hint of spooking the markets (Reuters)

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are hobnobbing with billionaires in Davos, while Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are pursuing what they call the priorities of the British people in gritty northern towns. This role reversal suits both sides perfectly.

The World Economic Forum, focus of a thousand internet conspiracy theories about the puppet masters who really rule the globe, is a rich people’s talking shop, which is just the right image for today’s Labour. The party was only recently led by an anti-capitalist, anti-establishment politician who was a little too close to conspiracist thinking for comfort.

Starmer’s priority is to project the opposite image: respectability, reassurance, competence and no hint of spooking the markets. Not just the opposite of Jeremy Corbyn, but the opposite of the chaos of last year’s Conservative leadership too.

Hence the Labour leader is taking part in a session about the world energy crisis, while the shadow chancellor is discussing whether the world is in a “debt spiral”. If they were in government, they would be booed for being out of touch, offering words in a ski resort chatfest rather than actions to help hard-pressed voters with their gas and electricity bills and mortgage payments. But they are in opposition, so they are cheered for projecting an image of knowing what they are talking about and of holding their own with world leaders.

Being in opposition, they have the luxury of not having to make much sense. Starmer’s pitch is that democracies should share ideas about how to wean themselves off energy dependence on the Russian government and other authoritarian regimes. Labour claims that his plan for energy security is “internationalist and allied with the interests and ambitions of other countries”. But his plan is that Britain should be self-sufficient in energy, and other countries can look out for themselves, which is the kind of isolationist siege economics that used to be identified with Tony Benn.

Similarly, Reeves will be able to sail through her session on debt without having to spell out anything quite as specific as what a Labour government’s fiscal rules will be. Her current plan is to add to the British national debt by borrowing an extra £28bn a year for a Green Prosperity Plan, and she still hasn’t said whether she would be bound as chancellor by Hunt’s new rule to limit annual borrowing to 3 per cent of national income. (She will be, when the election approaches, but she wants to keep her options open for as long as possible.)

Never mind the detail, read the headlines. “Starmer heads for Davos on mission to repair ties with EU and global finance,” was the Financial Times front-page lead this morning. Job done. The report itself quoted the Labour leader engaged in another interesting bit of positioning. Not only is he the opposite of Corbyn and the Conservatives, but he and Reeves are also the opposite of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. That they were attending Davos together was “a signal about how aligned and close we are in our thinking. Almost every decision I have to take as leader of the Labour Party, I will be taking in conjunction with Rachel”.

Asked by the FT about the tensions between Blair and Brown, Starmer said: “We will take a totally different approach.” He was repeating what Reeves said in her Times interview a few days ago: that she would prefer to emulate the relationship between David Cameron and George Osborne. “They worked very well together as a team. You couldn’t play them off against each other,” she said.

That is not necessarily a good thing, as Ed Balls, another of her predecessors as shadow chancellor, never tires of telling our students on the history of the Treasury course at King’s College London. Balls is of course defending Brown against the charge that he was a destructive influence, arguing that theirs was a creative tension, but there is some truth in that – and also in the idea that the Cameron-Osborne relationship was too close and that they failed to challenge each other sufficiently.

That may be a debate for another time. For now, presenting themselves as a harmonious version of the New Labour partnership is a winning formula for Starmer and Reeves. There was a time when Blair’s ease with the global rich was a great Labour strength; now it is again.

While Sunak, an actual member of the global rich, is required to go begging for working-class votes in Accrington.