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6 days ago
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Prime ministers often experience absurdly parallel lives on the world stage and at home – feted among fellow leaders and pilloried domestically.
Never was that more obvious than during the prime minister’s trip to India this week, after a torrid month in the UK, where he arrived to find the motorways and backstreets of Mumbai papered with pictures of his face.
The motorcade that whisked Starmer from the airport to India’s business capital passed a total of 5,700 posters welcoming Starmer to Mumbai. Streets were closed and platforms were built for dancers and musicians to play for that fleeting second that the cars went past.
Modi had visited the UK for an overnight stay at Chequers this summer. Had the same happened for him, the equivalent would have been thousands of billboards with the Indian premier’s face adorning the M40. What he got – according to aides – was a souvenir gingerbread.
Starmer flew into India to mark one of the standout successes of his first year in government, the clinching of the trade deal with India that had eluded his Tory predecessors.
He met Modi at the G20 this time last year in Rio de Janeiro where he told the Indian prime minister that the talks should either be stepped up or the two sides should conclude it was never going to happen.
They agreed to try to push through – though the subsequent press release which said talks would be restarted was ignored by most of the travelling media who were used to false starts, having been promised multiple times a “deal by Diwali” by Boris Johnson as multiple festivals went by.
Starmer lit a Diwali candle at a vibrant celebration at Mumbai’s most exclusive hotel during his trip to mark the signing of an free trade agreement under Labour – which would have been hard for his old PMQs sparring partner to see.
Foreign Office officials said Starmer had seemed to have managed to crack Modi’s tough and serious exterior to forge a decent relationship that has eluded many world leaders, and on Thursday he called Starmer his “friend” during a press conference.
However, the UK has been able to take some advantage of the frustrations the Indians feel, having poured resources into a now unpredictable relationship with the US.
“My understanding is PM Modi said to the Maharishi government, please make sure that the prime minister understands how welcome he is in India,” one official said. “It is absolutely extraordinary. I’m used to quite a level of welcome in Delhi for foreign leaders but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
There is another parallel universe onboard Stamer’s flight to Mumbai, on which was the biggest business delegation since Theresa May’s 2018 trip to China: more than 120 chief executives, founders and cultural leaders, as well as vice-chancellors.
Starmer – who often gives off the aura of the boss attempting to rally his employees with a company picnic – addressed the business leaders of companies like EY, Barclays and British Airways, telling them to each give him one deal they had clinched during the trip, as if he was doing their appraisals.
In the hotel bars, business leaders said they were excited about the level of access they were being given in India and the level of goodwill that had been unlocked towards UK businesses.
“That’s the headline on day one,” one said. But then comes day two. And after the warm words about the deal, what most business leaders wanted to know chatting to ministers and journalists in the hotel lobby was what to expect from the forthcoming budget. At the forefront of their minds is the quest for growth back home.
On the mind of many CEOs who flew out with Starmer to India is the state of the British economy, national insurance rises, more tax rises in the budget, the possibility of bank taxes, rocketing energy bills and stubborn inflation.
The India FTA is a teaspoon’s-worth to fill Rachel Reeves’s budget hole of an estimated £30-40bn. The government’s own modelling of the impact of the India trade deal says it will add 0.13% to GDP by 2040 – and likely a fair bit less by 2030, which is the forecast period when the OBR assesses the meeting of the fiscal rules.
New low tariffs have not yet even been implemented – that will come after parliament ratifies the deal, which officials cannot even yet put a timeline on. University vice-chancellors accompanying the prime minister are diversifying into campuses in India – but really would like the prime minister to be more liberal on international students, a far bigger income driver.
And Starmer will fly back home from personal billboards to some of the lowest poll ratings in prime ministerial history and restive cabinet and backbenches. Several had been anxious over the Labour conference about a prime minister who had begun a fight for the soul of the nation with Nigel Farage and then flown abroad. As one business leader remarked: “I bet he wishes he could stay here.”
