Keir Starmer may have a better chance of taking Labour to power than anyone expected

First impressions matter in politics. Once the public have made their mind up about a politician, they rarely change it. This is why the first 100 days in charge are so important for any new leader. Get off to a good start, and everything is possible. Stumble out of the gate and your race is run.

Keir Starmer is widely expected to be announced as the new Labour leader on Saturday, but he faces the prospect of having to keep his distance from the electorate for the bulk of his first 100 days. The pandemic means that he won’t have the choices that normally come to the winner. There can be no victory rally, no tour of the country designed to show that there aren’t any ‘no-go areas’ for him — the whole country is a no-go area for anyone who isn’t local.

Through no fault of his own, he will struggle to make the news of his victory the main story that day. The government expects the coronavirus peak to start in the week beginning 12 April, and the headlines the week before will still be dominated by the grim announcement of the daily death toll and theories about what that means for the spread of the virus.

There is a parallel for Starmer’s situation. In 2001, voting in the Tory leadership election ended on 11 September. The attacks on the Twin Towers meant that it wasn’t thought appropriate to announce the result the next day, so it was pushed back to the 13th. The headlines, though, were still dominated by terrorism — and continued to be for months — meaning that Iain Duncan Smith never had the chance to introduce himself to the public. This may be at least one of the reasons why he became the first Tory leader since Neville Chamberlain not to lead his party into a general election.