James Kirkup James Kirkup

Why Starmer shouldn’t relaunch

Resets almost always fail

(Getty)

Yesterday’s Times carried a report that will only add to Sir Keir Starmer’s troubles. It quoted several members of the shadow ministerial team suggesting that Starmer is dull and unimpressive.That will only sharpen the perception, held by quite a few Westminster people, that the Labour leader isn’t doing as well as he should be, given the government’s weaknesses and failings.

‘Keir Starmer is not dragging his party down but he’s not transforming its fortunes either’. That was the conclusion of a New Statesman analysis a few weeks ago, and probably a fair one. The problem for Starmer is the fact that Labour needs that transformation. One of the most overlooked facts of political life is just how badly Labour did in 2019. That very poor performance means it would take something truly impressive and borderline historic for Labour to win a majority next time around.

Roughly speaking, it would take the sort of ten-point swing that Tony Blair got in 1997 to give Starmer’s Labour even the smallest of Commons majorities. And Keir Starmer is not Tony Blair. Hence the range of likely outcomes of the next election run from a modest Tory majority (perhaps under a new leader) to a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party and struggling to govern.

By relaunching yourself, you confirm that you’ve been sinking

That is my summary of the conventional wisdom at Westminster regarding Starmer and his prospects. The coming Wakefield by-election is unlikely to change that story if it follows expectations and produces a Labour win: that gain has been, in the irritating cliché of the political village, ‘priced in’, regarded as the least that the opposition should currently be achieving. A (truly surprising) Tory win in Wakefield would turbocharge the ‘Starmer isn’t working’ narrative.

Narratives about leaders and their performance can be powerful, and can also defy the facts.

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