Starmer’s Indian Autumn

British Prime Min­ister Keir Starmer landed in Mumbai on October 8 with an entourage of 125 business­men, academic leaders from universities and assorted offi­cials. He spent part of his time in Mumbai being charmed by Bollywood actors.

But that was a side-show of a side-show. The real action for him is taking place back home where Rachel Reeves, his chancellor of exchequer, is having a tough time balanc­ing the budgetary books even as the Conservatives, who were driven out of power by the reckless behaviour, seem to have gathered their act together. Not to leave him behind, Nigel Farage, the far-right politician, too, fancies his chances in the years ahead.

Barely a year after a land­slide victory at the hustings, he finds himself on the ropes. During the campaign trail, he and his party had promised not to raise taxes to assuage investors and “the City”. In the event, in her first budget last year, Reeves ended up raising 40 billion pounds in taxes. A year later, she is staring at a very thin budget­ary buffer and investment bankers are urging her to do more on this front. It is not clear how she can do that without raising further taxes. In its March 2025 assessment, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) painted a sombre picture of the British economy. Between 2023 and 2029, growth is expected to average 1.75 per cent and reforms may increase potential growth by, at most, 0.2 per cent by 2029. Falling productivity growth and rising bond yields more than fill this cup of woes.

Every government in Brit­ain, Conservative or Labour, begins its campaign to power with a big—undeliverable— promise: jobs and prosperity. But given the sclerosis in the British and Western econo­mies, that promise remains a mere promise. What differ­entiates parties and govern­ments, politically? Not much. Ever since the Tony Blair years (from 1997 to 2007), Labour lost its ability to distinguish itself from the Conservative party. The faithful are bound to howl at this assertion but there is some truth in the claim. The ‘Third Way’ left little room for manoeuvre for Labour. Gone were the days of trade union mili­tancy that allowed aggressive political bargaining. London by then had become the trans-Atlantic epicentre of the “Washington Consensus”. After decades of privatisation, undermining trade unions and social security, there was little left to do. By the time Starmer reached Westmin­ster, he too had to follow the nostrums that defined what was acceptable and what was not. It is not surprising that Blair was once described as the “best conservative PM that Britain had.”

While Conservatives could (and did) rely on other, aggressive, political op­tions—curbing immigration and exit from the European Union being two—it is not clear if Labour could openly repudiate what the Conserva­tives did. Hence, the muddled messaging and resort to tired formulae. That Britons chose Labour shows how scandal­ous the Conservative stay in power was. The last elec­tions were not about some reinvented or refurbished version of Labour that was intrinsically better than the Conservative party.

From a longer vantage, the malaise that afflicts Britain has a different cause. In one famous ante-mortem analy­sis, the late Tom Nairn, a dis­tinguished Marxist scholar of nationalism, said that unlike other European countries, Britain never experienced a revolution that modernised its state. 1688 was no 1848 and the enchanted isles contin­ued on their old path.

The upshot of all this is that Starmer can come to Mumbai, meet the crowd of celebrities and announce that Bollywood will shoot three films in his country. That act of making films is expected to bring jobs and, hopefully, a sliver of prosperity. Hopeful­ly, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will go beyond the films. Starmer and Indians at large are certainly hopeful of that outcome.