Labor celebrates new beginnings with Andy Burnham, but financial realities dampen the euphoria

At its party conference, the British Labor Party once again basks in the euphoria of a new beginning with Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has ousted the unpopular Keir Starmer. People are calling for a “politics of hope” and the great change that is now coming – but this time for real. But some promises sound completely unrealistic. For example, the supposedly coming “new age of industrialization” that Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey spoke of. Britain's industries have been dwindling for years, groaning under enormously high energy costs and other burdens and shedding jobs. A few government contracts for shipyards will not bring about a general turnaround.

At least Chancellor Healey served up an inconvenient truth to the delegates: the tide in public coffers is low. You can't draw on the full potential that New Labor did almost thirty years ago, said Healey. It is a credit to the hard-edged Social Democrat that he emphasized this fact and insisted on fiscal discipline. He rejected any move away from the fiscal rules that some left-wing parties dream of. It is also true that Healey calls for social reforms so that state unemployment assistance does not become a permanent trap for young people. Reforms are also needed in the state pension system in order to slow the increase in spending. They require a lot of courage. Burnham's predecessor Starmer failed because the party left took to the barricades.

Meanwhile, Healey is feeling the pressure of Britain's three trillion pound mountain of debt. Interest rates are rising threateningly. Just in time for Burnham's speech came the news that the Treasury had to pay a yield of almost 5.4 percent in the auction for a new ten-year bond - the highest level in almost three decades. Great Britain pays significantly higher interest rates than France or Italy, even though their debt ratios are even higher.

The mountain of debt threatens to crush the country in the long term if it doesn't take countermeasures. However, many Labor delegates probably did not understand how precarious the situation is. The applause for Healey's commitment to budget discipline remained rather polite and meek.