Last weekend’s forced reset of the government tells us some important things about the prime minister and his attitude to food and drink.
First, like Tony Blair (another lawyer), Keir Starmer believes Cabinet ministers resemble barristers. Rather than leaders of the departments they supervise, the minister’s role is essentially temporary. It is a brief given by the PM to be discharged over a very finite period of time.
He does not appear to believe that extensive detailed preparation is required. Reading the brief should be enough.
Second, Starmer is utterly ruthless. The industry – all of us if we ever deal with him – should bear this in mind. Long-term friends and loyalists are ditched or demoted, but he promotes or finds safe haven for those who it is expedient to keep, lest they pose a threat later.
Starmer’s barrister approach has another consequence. Relationships with stakeholders are conducted like those with clients: “I’m here to get you off or send you down.”
They are transactional – a pint afterwards (the equivalent of a cuppa in the custody cell) and that’s it. Delivery does not require long-term settled relationships with stakeholders like farmers, retailers or food manufacturers who make up the UK polity. Interventions with them are a means to an end. There is zero long-term plan, no vision of how the industry might contribute to a Starmer Britain.
Finally, the government’s survival is more important than the quality of its governance – which brings us back to food and drink.
Defra’s revolving door
No one will miss Steve Reed, the most recent of 10 totally pointless Defra secretaries in the last decade (with the arguable exceptions of Michael Gove and George Eustice) . But Daniel Zeichner was making a half-decent fist of a very tricky hand. He had spent years in opposition reading himself into the role of minister of food. His National Food Strategy and its advisory board had at least the shell of an idea of how to create a platform for the industry and government to go forward constructively.
But never mind his expertise. Yvette Cooper had to be retained and her lieutenants be found jobs to keep them and her happy. Hence Angela Eagle.
Don’t misunderstand me: Eagle is one of the most effective ministers in recent governments. She and her new boss Emma Reynolds are both highly competent. They may, in the end, be very good for readers of The Grocer and their businesses. But, precisely because they are good, they will probably want to start from scratch. And that will take time and effort building relationships with an industry already driven to distraction by ministerial turnover.
The food inflation storm
It will take time this government doesn’t have. And a storm is already blowing through food and farming. Prime ministers can weather rebellions on welfare – they may even survive difficulties over immigration. But sustained food price inflation at high single digits is nightmare city. It promises to fuel a cost of living crisis which is immediately obvious to anyone who shops in a supermarket or convenience store (which probably excludes the PM and Chancellor).
The causes will be well known to readers. Energy and input costs remain well above pre-pandemic levels. Fertiliser costs are now much higher than ever before, driving up crop prices. Climate change and weather shocks are everyday hazards for farmers, growers and importers of food from just about everywhere. Global climate events hit grain, rice and all other commodities, often pushing prices to record levels. Post-Brexit trade frictions continue to bite, while across the industry acute labour shortages send up wages. Geopolitical instability means the cost of freight continues to be high and subject to spikes. And then there’s Donald Trump, in all his myriad manifestations.
Of course supermarket competition does have a counter impact, but it’s not the barrier to inflation it once was. Food price inflation is set to be the spectre haunting this government’s attempts to build growth.
And the problem for Starmer is that there won’t be anyone in his tent who has the foggiest idea about how to bring it under control or talk to those who might. It’s a replay of what happened to the economy after Covid, under Rishi Sunak. And, though he and his minions will undoubtedly blame all of us, it is entirely his fault for not valuing those who might have given him better advice.
Ian Wright, partner at Acuti Associates
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