Weak, weak, weak

Keir Starmer needs to learn the difference between strength and fragility. Also this week: Australia’s illusory straight line boundaries; and what exactly is a heatwave?

When I was about 14, I had a history teacher who I’m pretty sure was new to teaching. For the first few weeks he taught us, he was hard as nails, handing out frankly unreasonable but not obviously useful workloads, and brooking no disagreement whatsoever: the sort of educator who would, were he a Dickens character, describe himself as a “tartar”. Then one day he entered the classroom and announced: “Gentlement, last night I sat down to do your homework. It took me a bloody long time.” He apologised, and spent the rest of that lesson solemnly listening to our grievances. Looking back, I suspect this was a ploy: he’d shown us he was strict, then shown us he could be reasonable. But he never had to assert his authority again

Another teacher I had around the same time – older, more experienced, a significantly nicer man – spent his life trying to assert his authority. He would be kind; he showed concern for our welfare. And we would take the piss; we would exhaust his patience; he would lose his temper, shout and storm from the room. When he came back, we would begin the cycle again.

The knowledge of which of those two men I most temperamentally resemble is one of the many things that makes me think I’d suck at teaching, so I’d really better make this whole writing thing work out.

Anyway: I’ve barely thought of either of these men for years until last Wednesday evening, when news broke that Keir Starmer had removed the whip from four backbenchers – Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff – for repeatedly rebelling against the government, on welfare or planning. The PM also stripped three more backbenchers of roles as trade envoys, a move whose main effect, best one can tell, was to advertise that there’s such a thing as a trade envoy.¹

And I found myself thinking of that French teacher who lost his temper more often than anyone I had ever met, and who we weren’t scared of even slightly.

The case for the tonne-of-bricks approach is, basically, this: that party discipline matters and is in danger of breaking down; that these guys weren’t just rebels, but ringleaders; and that they continued rebelling, even after concessions had been made. They were guilty, the (inevitable) unnamed party source told the (equally inevitable) Times, of “persistent knobheadery”.

Very well – but the result has been fury across the party, and it’s not hard to see why. For one thing, not all the ringleaders have been punished. One of the most powerful voices against the welfare cuts has been Treasury select committee chair Meg Hillier: she voted with the government in the end, but nonetheless retains the whip, despite her profile. Very brave, Prime Minister.

Then there’s that awful “knobheadery” quote, which I’m sure will do wonders for concerns that Downing Street is being run by a bunch of nerdy lads who’ve embarrassingly convinced themselves they’re macho. The MPs may have rebelled; but they are nonetheless elected representatives, and did so in their own name and for causes they believe in. (I think Hinchcliff, a former CPRE staffer, is extremely wrong about the planning bill; but I nonetheless think that he’s sincerely wrong.) Are we sure it is them, not the angry manchild who lacks the balls to put his name to a quote, who’s the knobhead who deserves booting from the party, here?

The biggest problem, though, is the mixed messages. You can’t cave to the rebels and then punish them: it announces both that the government can be pushed around, and that it’s liable to lash out without warning. Sure, a parliamentary system where people are elected on a party ticket requires whips and a government line to function – but MPs ultimately make their own choices about how to vote nonetheless, and the job of a government is to convince them it deserves their support.

Actually making time to speak with them would be a good start – not least because it would force the Prime Minister to articulate what his strategy actually is. Kicking the truculent out of the party instead just risks creating martyrs – which is why, I suspect, Tony Blair never did it, and chose to treat his own left-wing as an amusing irritant not a personal threat.

Starmer’s job is tougher than Blair’s was. A lot of Labour MPs understand they’re unlikely to still be Labour MPs by 2030. Last year the party won a lot of seats it would be unlikely to hold next time, even if things were going well; that reduces the chances the new intake believe they’ll be offered plum ministerial jobs one day, which gives them fewer incentives to act like lobby fodder. None of this is easy.

But – tough. You people wanted the job: it’s no good whining about it now. A shortage of carrots doesn’t mean you can simply rely on a bigger stick. There is a difference between brittle and strong.

A quick reminder…

…should you be at the Rock Oyster festival in Cornwall this Sunday, I’ll be chatting to Tom Phillips about my book on borders and his book about the end of the world. Miranda Sawyer will be there too, as, I imagine, will be other great people who aren’t also my mates. Come along.

Some oddities on the map of Australia

I am, give or take, halfway through the process of writing the new book.² When finished it will be, I hope, good; but I cannot say yet that it is, and I always forget this bit even though it’s inevitable, and it sucks. There have been moments at which I found myself wistfully wishing I was instead writing what I’ve taken to thinking of as 2History 2Borders.

One of those moments came on Saturday when I received an email from Dr Peter Merrotsy of the University of Western Australia:

Hello Jonn!

Have just enjoyed reading your Borders book. You mention (Borders from a land down under) the SA–Vic–NSW surveying error: in case you do not already know it, the term MacCabe Corner will be of interest, and the Google map of the borders and Murray River there look impressive.

So I looked at the map. And I have to say he is not wrong.

First, a map of the states and territories of the great nation of Australia. The eastern boundary of South Australia appears, at first glance, to be a straight line; MacCabe Corner is the tripoint where the state meets both New South Wales and Victoria. Simple, right?

Image: Google Maps.

Wrong. Zoom in: