Senior Labour figures are in despair as their leader stumbles from one calamity to another
In 1892, standing for a little known entity called Independent Labour, Keir Hardie became the MP for West Ham South in London and entered Parliament for the first time. He wore his working man’s tweed suit, cap and red tie and was ridiculed for not conforming to the dress code of the rich parliamentarians who surrounded him.
Determined not to make the same mistake 132 years later, Sir Keir Starmer decided that it would be sensible politics to accept gifts from a millionaire donor for nice suits and even better spectacles. On the morning of the Labour Party conference opening, front pages were adorned with images of the PM, with his chief of staff, Sue Gray, in the directors’ box of another Premier League club. Party members are saying “just make it stop”.
In Liverpool this week, Sir Keir Starmer will once again try to “do politics”. It is to be hoped he has more success than with his decision to accept tickets to any passing piece of glitter.
The Prime Minister likes a game of five aside, which friends say he plays with stodgy determination and little obvious skill – stooping to the odd shoulder barge when things are not going his way. He has brought similar talents with him to Number 10.
This is the first conference with Labour in government for 15 years. It should be a celebration. A few things have gone well, the response to the riots was robustly supported by the public. A pay deal for public sector workers means there are now no excuses for strikes which left millions on delayed trains or facing empty classrooms. Lord Darzi’s analysis of NHS failures opens up the health service to the large scale reform it needs.
But all the talk in the quieter, but no less important, parts of the Labour Party, is anxious. Starmer has squandered any honeymoon he had with poor decision making and a glaring lack of political strategy. There is, as yet, no “big story” about what this new government wants to do. Just 80 days in and some are wondering if the right person is in charge. And these are people who want a Labour prime minister.
American analysts call the period after an election, when a new leader naturally dominates the headlines and voters can finally see someone not campaigning but leading, as the “second look”. This is the PM’s chance to set expectations and build a sustainable relationship with the public, including those many millions of people who did not vote Labour.
Starmer is failing the second look test. The decision to cut the allowance for pensioners has been a political disaster – “the most significant policy mistake since Theresa May announced the dementia tax” as one astute Labour Party observer told me. That is not because it is the wrong policy (I happen to support means testing benefits) but because it was announced with the fig-leaf defence, given the size of the public finances, that the Government needed to save £1.5billion.
Most worrying for those around Starmer and Rachel Reeves, who took the decision, is not only that many poorer pensioners will lose a significant amount of money – they will – but that abrupt and unexplained changes to benefit rights for older people always go wrong, as any political leader should know.
Just ask Gordon Brown about the 75p increase in pensions he agreed in 1998, a move so controversial the Labour government was obliged to announce that winter fuel payments, introduced a year earlier, would be paid annually. They also threw in free television licences for the over-75s.
Reeves will be under similar pressure to “help pensioners” in the Budget in a month’s time, the moment when she should have announced the phasing out of the winter fuel allowance and the campaign to ensure as many poorer pensioners as possible are signed up to receive the benefit via the pensioner credit. She could also have said that the application process – at present running to over 200 questions – would be simplified, to cheers and waving of order papers from the back benches.
Within a package of fiscal measures, means testing the winter fuel allowance, a badly targeted payment formulated to solve an earlier Labour controversy, would have been simple to land and less straight-forward to attack. No one can reasonably believe that giving the benefit to millionaires makes any sense.
Politics isn’t simply about making the right decision. It is first about having the right “narrative” Then it is about connecting every decision to that narrative, and to ensuring that anything that contradicts the government’s story is killed and killed quickly. This is politics 101.
Starmer’s narrative, such as it is, is three-fold – fixing the public finances, stability and a government of “public service”. Cutting the universal winter fuel allowance failed on all three.
And then came the gifts. “Free stuff not available to the general public” is a reminder to all voters that far from “turning the page”, senior Labour politicians have their heads turned by the wealthy bearing cash just as readily as their Conservative counterparts.
Starmer’s photographs with friends at Taylor Swift concerts and in the Arsenal directors’ box reveals a tin ear to the public’s attitude to politicians. The fact that Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Reeves both attempted to obscure what they had actually received by describing thousands of pounds worth of clothing from party donors as “donations in kind for undertaking Parliamentary duties” or “to support the shadow chancellor’s office” will further erode trust.
Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, said on Question Time that gifts were fine as long as everything was transparent. She should tell her Cabinet colleagues.
Voters have noticed. Starmer’s personal approval ratings have fallen to their lowest levels since 2020 when he still laboured under the shadow of Jeremy Corbyn. The percentage who disapprove has doubled. In the few council by-elections since July 5, Labour’s vote has collapsed – though turnouts are small. Even the party’s press release championing the somewhat Orwellian conference slogan, Change Begins, is riddled with errors.
Politics is part art, part engineering, a difficult balancing act akin to surfing a wave whilst simultaneously tying your shoelaces. Like a right hander attempting to write a sentence with his left, Starmer is no natural. The results – shaky, disjointed, lacking in grace – are depressingly similar.
Senior Labour figures are in despair as their leader stumbles from one calamity to another
In 1892, standing for a little known entity called Independent Labour, Keir Hardie became the MP for West Ham South in London and entered Parliament for the first time. He wore his working man’s tweed suit, cap and red tie and was ridiculed for not conforming to the dress code of the rich parliamentarians who surrounded him.
Determined not to make the same mistake 132 years later, Sir Keir Starmer decided that it would be sensible politics to accept gifts from a millionaire donor for nice suits and even better spectacles. On the morning of the Labour Party conference opening, front pages were adorned with images of the PM, with his chief of staff, Sue Gray, in the directors’ box of another Premier League club. Party members are saying “just make it stop”.
In Liverpool this week, Sir Keir Starmer will once again try to “do politics”. It is to be hoped he has more success than with his decision to accept tickets to any passing piece of glitter.
The Prime Minister likes a game of five aside, which friends say he plays with stodgy determination and little obvious skill – stooping to the odd shoulder barge when things are not going his way. He has brought similar talents with him to Number 10.
This is the first conference with Labour in government for 15 years. It should be a celebration. A few things have gone well, the response to the riots was robustly supported by the public. A pay deal for public sector workers means there are now no excuses for strikes which left millions on delayed trains or facing empty classrooms. Lord Darzi’s analysis of NHS failures opens up the health service to the large scale reform it needs.
But all the talk in the quieter, but no less important, parts of the Labour Party, is anxious. Starmer has squandered any honeymoon he had with poor decision making and a glaring lack of political strategy. There is, as yet, no “big story” about what this new government wants to do. Just 80 days in and some are wondering if the right person is in charge. And these are people who want a Labour prime minister.
American analysts call the period after an election, when a new leader naturally dominates the headlines and voters can finally see someone not campaigning but leading, as the “second look”. This is the PM’s chance to set expectations and build a sustainable relationship with the public, including those many millions of people who did not vote Labour.
Starmer is failing the second look test. The decision to cut the allowance for pensioners has been a political disaster – “the most significant policy mistake since Theresa May announced the dementia tax” as one astute Labour Party observer told me. That is not because it is the wrong policy (I happen to support means testing benefits) but because it was announced with the fig-leaf defence, given the size of the public finances, that the Government needed to save £1.5billion.
Most worrying for those around Starmer and Rachel Reeves, who took the decision, is not only that many poorer pensioners will lose a significant amount of money – they will – but that abrupt and unexplained changes to benefit rights for older people always go wrong, as any political leader should know.
Just ask Gordon Brown about the 75p increase in pensions he agreed in 1998, a move so controversial the Labour government was obliged to announce that winter fuel payments, introduced a year earlier, would be paid annually. They also threw in free television licences for the over-75s.
Reeves will be under similar pressure to “help pensioners” in the Budget in a month’s time, the moment when she should have announced the phasing out of the winter fuel allowance and the campaign to ensure as many poorer pensioners as possible are signed up to receive the benefit via the pensioner credit. She could also have said that the application process – at present running to over 200 questions – would be simplified, to cheers and waving of order papers from the back benches.
Within a package of fiscal measures, means testing the winter fuel allowance, a badly targeted payment formulated to solve an earlier Labour controversy, would have been simple to land and less straight-forward to attack. No one can reasonably believe that giving the benefit to millionaires makes any sense.
Politics isn’t simply about making the right decision. It is first about having the right “narrative” Then it is about connecting every decision to that narrative, and to ensuring that anything that contradicts the government’s story is killed and killed quickly. This is politics 101.
Starmer’s narrative, such as it is, is three-fold – fixing the public finances, stability and a government of “public service”. Cutting the universal winter fuel allowance failed on all three.
And then came the gifts. “Free stuff not available to the general public” is a reminder to all voters that far from “turning the page”, senior Labour politicians have their heads turned by the wealthy bearing cash just as readily as their Conservative counterparts.
Starmer’s photographs with friends at Taylor Swift concerts and in the Arsenal directors’ box reveals a tin ear to the public’s attitude to politicians. The fact that Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Reeves both attempted to obscure what they had actually received by describing thousands of pounds worth of clothing from party donors as “donations in kind for undertaking Parliamentary duties” or “to support the shadow chancellor’s office” will further erode trust.
Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, said on Question Time that gifts were fine as long as everything was transparent. She should tell her Cabinet colleagues.
Voters have noticed. Starmer’s personal approval ratings have fallen to their lowest levels since 2020 when he still laboured under the shadow of Jeremy Corbyn. The percentage who disapprove has doubled. In the few council by-elections since July 5, Labour’s vote has collapsed – though turnouts are small. Even the party’s press release championing the somewhat Orwellian conference slogan, Change Begins, is riddled with errors.
Politics is part art, part engineering, a difficult balancing act akin to surfing a wave whilst simultaneously tying your shoelaces. Like a right hander attempting to write a sentence with his left, Starmer is no natural. The results – shaky, disjointed, lacking in grace – are depressingly similar.