How much trouble is Keir Starmer in?

To Liverpool for Labour’s first party conference since Keir Starmer triumphed in the general election. On paper, this ought to be a jubilant affair for all involved. The party has returned to power after 14 years with a large majority, which ought to pave the way for a second term. Yet few in the party are in a celebratory mood. Instead there’s concern that less than 100 days in, Starmer is losing grip on his government.

The past week has been dominated by stories over Labour ‘sleaze’ over donations and ongoing hostile briefings pointing to turmoil amongst Starmer’s top team. ‘It’s all feeling a bit Tories 2019,’ jokes a Labour insider, pointing to how the Conservatives were dogged by stories of staff psychodrama and money rows.

Late on Friday, Downing Street announced that Starmer – along with his Chancellor Rachel Reeves and deputy Angela Rayner – will no longer take free clothes. That means the main Saturday headline going into Labour conference is not the preferred message of ‘change begins’ but a variation on ‘The Prime Minister will no longer accept free clothes’. The u-turn is clearly aimed at putting a lid on the story so it doesn’t drag into conference. But expect Labour politicians to be asked who they are wearing, not so much with regards to the designer but the donor behind the outfit. There is no indication yet that Starmer plans to return the clothes he has accepted.

In a way, the freebies row is the least serious of the current troublesome stories facing Labour. Starmer is particularly vulnerable to it having painted himself as ‘Mr Rules’. But no rules seem to have been broken here, even if the antics are not passing a basic smell test. The wider concern is that it is another sign of a lack of joined up narrative. One Labour figure makes the point that no one seems to have clocked that if the government is making ‘difficult’ decisions, such as cutting the winter fuel payment for most pensioners and warning of potential tax rises, anything that looks as though Labour politicians are having a more luxurious life than the average voter becomes a live issue. It’s telling that Jonathan Ashworth, the former shadow minister and Starmer ally who lost his seat in the election, writes in today’s Sun warning that voters expect Labour to govern in ­service of working people.

The bigger concern amongst MPs is really on the economy and what further difficult decisions Reeves has planned. She has made the case convincingly to Labour MPs earlier this month that they need to stick on the current path. However, not helping Starmer and Reeves is the fact that Labour is sinking in the polls and approval ratings are low. The risk of all these sleaze stories and the most recent u-turn is that MPs start to think that the operation is not nimble enough to land the narrative for the difficult decisions they plan to take. Persistent briefings about Downing Street Chief of Staff Sue Gray – most notably the disclosure this week that she earns three thousand pounds more than the Prime Minister – are adding to a sense of dysfunction. As one Labour MP puts it: ‘If the government keeps going as it is, voters are going to have lots more reasons to be pissed off and not many reasons for optimism’. Starmer needs to use this conference to put his party at ease on all of the above.