A Government Out of Its Depth: Poor Judgement, Weak Growth, No Direction
Why bad decisions at the top are feeding economic paralysis, voter revolt, and rising costs.
This week’s Stat of the Nation cuts across politics, the economy and energy — but the thread running through it all is judgment. From avoidable political self-harm at the top of government, to a weakening economy acknowledged by the Bank of England, to policies that are actively making Britain less competitive, the picture is becoming harder to ignore. Confidence is slipping, growth is stalling, and voters — particularly in Wales — are beginning to draw their own conclusions.
🚨 Starmer, Mandelson and Epstein: A Question of Judgement
This week brought fresh and damaging detail on the long-running links between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein — and they go directly to the question of judgement at the very top of government.
New reporting has set out in clearer terms the extent and nature of Mandelson’s continued association with Epstein after his 2008 conviction, including social contact Mandelson himself has acknowledged. This was not a one-off lapse, nor a relationship that quietly ended once Epstein was convicted. It continued — knowingly.
That context matters because Keir Starmer did not appoint Mandelson in ignorance. This history was already known. The additional detail this week simply underlines how serious that judgement failure now looks.
Despite this, Starmer chose Mandelson as UK Ambassador to the United States — one of the most sensitive diplomatic posts Britain holds, requiring unimpeachable credibility and sound judgement.
This is not about hindsight. It is about standards. At a time when trust in politics is already fragile, appointing a figure carrying this level of reputational risk was an entirely avoidable act of self-harm — one that has distracted from government business and weakened confidence at home and abroad.
And it is not an isolated error. It fits a broader pattern of poor decisions, reversals and misjudgements that have come to define Starmer’s time in office.
🏴 Wales: The “Never Again” Warning for Labour
One of the most striking signals in the latest polling isn’t just that voters are drifting away from Labour — it’s that a sizeable chunk are saying they’re gone for good.
A meaningful share of former Labour voters in Wales now say they will never vote Labour again. That isn’t a mid-term wobble. It’s a structural collapse in brand loyalty — the kind that ends long periods of one-party dominance.
With the Senedd elections approaching, Welsh Labour can no longer hide behind incumbency or habit. After more than 25 years in power, voters aren’t just asking “who else?” — they’re asking what we got for it?
Because of the outcomes that matter most to families, Wales has little to show for a generation of Labour rule:
Health: long waits, persistent underperformance, and a system that feels permanently stuck in crisis management rather than recovery.
Education: weak results and years of warnings that standards are slipping, while rhetoric stays upbeat and accountability stays absent.
These are not new problems. They are the record.
And now Keir Starmer is making the situation worse. His leadership — the U-turns, the judgement failures, the lack of grip — is collapsing the old firewall that let Welsh Labour pretend it was separate from Labour in Westminster.
So voters are judging Labour on two fronts:
Welsh Labour’s record, and
a UK Labour government that looks chaotic and directionless.
📉 The Economy: The Bank of England Downgraded Growth — and That’s the Point
This week, the Bank of England downgraded its growth outlook, which is about as clear a signal as you can get that the UK economy is weaker than previously expected — and that there’s no obvious momentum building underneath it.
The key point isn’t technical. It’s when the central bank starts marking down growth, it’s usually because the underlying picture is deteriorating: firms are cautious, investment is being delayed, and hiring is cooling. That’s when job losses become more likely, wage growth softens, and confidence takes another hit.
It also explains why policy is drifting towards rate cuts. Not because the economy is thriving, but because policymakers are trying to cushion a slowdown. Easing becomes the response when the outlook is weak, not when things are going well.
And there’s a fiscal sting in the tail. When growth disappoints, tax receipts weaken, and spending pressures rise — which is how governments end up borrowing more money simply to maintain the status quo. That’s the bind Britain is sliding into: low growth, a loosening labour market, and a government that looks too paralysed to change the trajectory.
🌍 Net Zero and Reality: Higher Costs, Lower Competitiveness, No Global Impact
There’s a bigger structural problem sitting underneath the weak-growth picture — and it’s one Westminster still refuses to confront.
Britain’s energy approach and relentless focus on net-zero is increasingly looking like economic self-harm dressed up as moral leadership. We’ve pushed energy costs higher, made industry less competitive, and then acted surprised as investment stalls and jobs drift offshore.
The UK now has the highest industrial electricity prices in Europe, roughly four times the level in the United States. That matters because electricity-intensive industries don’t just absorb costs out of patriotism. They relocate. Production shifts abroad. And we import the goods back in.
So the emissions don’t vanish — they move, quite commonly, to China.
And that’s where the scale of the global reality check becomes unavoidable. China emits the UK’s entire annual CO₂ output in around nine days. More stark still, China has added more than four UKs’ worth of CO₂ emissions in just four years. That one fact should end the pretence that Britain can regulate and subsidise its way to “saving the planet” while hollowing out its own economy.
This is the trap: we price ourselves out of competitiveness, lose jobs and production, and then congratulate ourselves on lower domestic emissions — while global emissions keep rising and China captures the industrial gains.
The Big Picture
Step back, and the pattern is unmistakable.
Poor judgement at the top feeds political paralysis. Paralysis feeds weak growth.
Weak growth means fewer jobs, softer wages, lower confidence and higher borrowing.
And all of it is compounded by policies that make Britain less competitive while achieving almost nothing globally.
This isn’t bad luck. It isn’t global headwinds. It’s a series of choices — and Britain is paying the price.
✍️ Jamie Jenkins
Stats Jamie | Stats, Facts & Opinions
📢 Call to Action
If this helped cut through the noise, share it and subscribe free by entering your email in the box below and get the stats before the spin, straight to your inbox (no algorithms).
📚 If you found this useful, you might also want to read:
📲 Follow me here for more daily updates:
the net zero stuff is a huge problem because all the political parties appear to be believers - none of them seem to think that the climate is doing just fine and humanity has no effect on it. all of them appear to want to cut emissions of co2 without understanding that it's plant food and more of it makes the planet greener and therefore capable of providing more food. so, unless we replace every single politician with a new, better educated one, how do we get out of the mess?