Few in history can have achieved so much in a negative sense in so short a time. Instead of gloatingly cresting the wave of success after securing British Labour a resounding, decisive victory in July 2024, Sir Keir Starmer is schooling us in precipitous decline. John Gray, that most erratic, protean of prophets, was already suggesting last year that the prime minister and his party were overseeing less “the rise of an all-powerful machine” than “another chapter in the story of Britain’s failing state.” Not a week goes by without some sniping at the dull technocrat’s limp performances from unnamed insiders or nipping from the party hacks. And let’s not forget the parasitic media stable, always willing to magnify matters in the factory of perceptions.
In fact, media magnification has done wonders to wither and sunder Starmer’s appeal, which, in the scheme of things, wasn’t grand to begin with. Take this reading of the situation from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg towards the end of last month. “In the last few days I’ve spoken to 30 people across government and the party – ministers, MPs, advisers – to try to work out, as the prime minister makes his way to Labour’s annual party conference in Liverpool, how much trouble is he really in?” In the tradition of true British journalism, not a single name is given of the 30. But they all have opinions they wish to air – anonymously.
One source takes issue with Starmer’s judgment on people, which “has proven to be flawed”, resulting in “endless staffing resets.” His judgment on policy is also flawed. He can’t communicate. He remains unpopular “in the public’s eyes” – whoever they are. Another “insider” offers his dollop of observation by suggesting the PM is “too like a chairman, not a chief executive”. A “senior party figure” damns Starmer for not thinking “like a leader”. One wonders how he has lasted so far.
Such talk has invariably encouraged talk about a leadership challenge to Mr Stiffness. The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has been as subtle as a sledgehammer on his own parliamentary ambitions. (Angela Raynor had been the media’s appointed potential challenger till her resignation as deputy prime minister and deputy party leader over a financial scandal.) Those wishing to fill column space on the theme of Starmer the Doomed also thought of another potential challenger: the new home secretary Shabana Mahmood.
Much concern centres on Starmer’s seeming inability to douse the unruly flames of nationalism sparked by Nigel Farage and his Reform UK Party. In keeping with trends on the European continent, Reform is surging like a current of indignation, threatening the dowdy political establishment with its often adventurous assessments on crime and immigration. In May, Farage was aglow with favourable results in a byelection, a mayoralty, and an electoral bag of 677 councillors from over 1,600 seats. On September 26, YouGov, using their multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) model, released a projection showing that Reform would net 311 seats were an election to be held the next day, based on a sample of 13,000 voters. At the start of October, The Guardian’s poll tracker had Reform polling at 31%, with Labour languishing at 21%.
Certainly, such figures should be seen with alarm by the party psephologists, not only in Labour, but by the Conservatives, who seemingly risk being outranked as the major party of opposition. But British politics, so long caged by the First Past the Post system, has a tendency to extinguish challenging upstarts and contenders, leaving the less deserving establishment parties on the parliamentary benches. Little is mentioned in the commentary on this fact.
At the Liverpool party conference, commentary from The Guardian picked up on “the stony faces of cabinet ministers in the front show” as Starmer gave his speech that supposedly postponed his fate (again, more media magnification). On this occasion, his ailing fortunes had been given a tonic. He had delivered “a full-throated defence of progressive values as the antidote to Reform, with no more equivocation.” The paper rolled out the usual unnamed senior figures. “National renewal, patriotism, clear dividing lines between us and the left and the right, aimed directly at middle Britain,” came one assessment. A minister had noticed “an emotional connection” in a speech of scrappiness and defiance, “which is always good when your back’s to the wall.”
Starmer does have his defenders, but they have come from surprising company. There is Fraser Nelson, former editor of the conservative weekly, The Spectator, who has confronted Farage on spurious claims that Britain has become a lawless jungle festering in rising criminal statistics. Fraser insists on something that Farage and Reform UK are allergic to: cast iron evidence. The Crime Survey for England and Wales is a source illuminatingly suggesting that the number of crimes has fallen by four-fifths since 1995. Never mind, says Farage, it does not cover shoplifting, and many people don’t bother to report crime anyway. Unfortunately for Starmer, he has been put off his stroke when dealing with perceptions, which are being all too readily moulded and packaged in the assembly line of fear that is Reform UK. The Tories, while looking a rather sad, decrepit lot, are taking a pose they have adopted at stages before: biding their time and awaiting their opponents to fall.