Labour seems to be flailing, but keep faith: Starmer’s long-term plans are both radical and sound | Polly Toynbee

Goals for low-carbon energy, prison reforms, housebuilding and more are ambitious and nation-changing. They won’t happen overnight

This is slow government. This solemn and serious cabinet is not one for quick, bright eye-catchers, timed to hit 6 o’clock bulletins. The best it does may only emerge in years ahead – it fervently hopes for enough ripening fruit by the next election. This long-termism requires an impatient and febrile electorate to take it on trust that the plans will work. That means Labour is ploughing on, undeterred by a mendacious opposition and its monster media. If Keir Starmer’s cabinet succeeds in most of its ambitions, it would set a nation-changing path.

If Ed Miliband achieves 95% low-carbon energy by 2030, that gives us and future generations renewable electricity security for ever, regardless of global markets. If Angela Rayner builds 1.5m homes, she will have found the means, the planning laws and the people with the construction skills to carry on building exponentially through following parliaments. If Bridget Phillipson can get the great majority of infants into good wrap-around nurseries ready for school, their education and wellbeing prospects look bright: it is only now that the previous Labour government’s Sure Start children are emerging from their GCSEs with higher scores than the rest.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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