That nobody in Keir Starmer’s inner circle worked out that trashing his personal reputation for a hundred grand’s worth of free stuff was a bad deal tells us a lot. Worse still, nobody seems even to have clocked that accepting so many freebies, especially from the ambitious Labour peer Lord Alli, could prove politically toxic – even though Starmer in opposition had frequently lambasted the likes of Boris Johnson for filling his own boots. On top of that, apparently no one had an issue with giving the right-wing media a free hit on the Prime Minister’s wife for the sake of £5,000 worth of clothes and personal shopping advice.
The Achilles’ heel of modern leftism – a belief that the innate moral superiority of its tenets and personnel is so obvious as to render both above suspicion – is clearly present in abundance in this Labour prime minister and his team. As a result he goes into his party’s annual conference today with a second unwanted nickname rapidly gaining popular purchase: ‘Free Gear Keir’ now sits alongside ‘Two Tier Keir’ as an irresistible moniker.
‘Free Gear Keir’ now sits alongside ‘Two Tier Keir’ as an irresistible moniker
Attending the St Leger race meeting at Doncaster last weekend, Starmer was on the receiving end of prolonged barracking. One heckler loudly labelled him a ‘wanker’ and nobody in the vicinity made any effort to disagree. Again, whoever thought South Yorkshire’s horse-racing fraternity was an appropriate crowd into which to pitch a PM who has alienated the white working class, parents of children at independent schools, smokers and the nation’s pensioners in his first weeks in office merits a mention in despatches for sheer incompetence.
It is not unknown for a prime minister to endure a baptism of fire and yet to come through and turn around public opinion – think of Margaret Thatcher between 1979 and 1983, for instance. But while Starmer may fancy himself as a political Iron Man, his political prospectus seems highly likely to fail. Naked favouritism towards trade unions – as evidenced in the junior doctors’ and train drivers’ no-strings pay deals and the abandoning of Ofsted’s ratings regime for schools – point to a further slump in public sector productivity.
The setting of a threshold for the unexpected withdrawal of winter fuel allowance at around the bottom decile of pensioners by income is another terrible self-inflicted wound. Talking down Britain’s economic prospects during a speech in the Downing Street rose garden was also a curious gambit given the centrality of market expectations when it comes to private investment decisions. Already some commentators claim to be detecting the start of a 1970s-style talent drain overseas as Angela Rayner pioneers new employment red tape, Rachel Reeves prepares for further increases in taxation and Ed Miliband makes energy cripplingly expensive.
Meanwhile, making ‘smashing the gangs’ rather than deterring their human cargo the focus of efforts to control illegal immigration via the English Channel has proved a predictable disaster. So far, more than 10,000 have come on Starmer’s watch.
Calling for swift and exemplary sentences for those connected to anti-immigration riots has contrasted awkwardly with a softly-softly approach to ethnic minority yobbery at Manchester Airport, Rochdale and Harehills in Leeds. Pictures of a previous generation of prisoners popping champagne corks and taking rides in Lamborghinis upon their early release will also live long in the public mind.
Israel has been half-dumped upon as it fights Islamist aggression on multiple fronts. There is little sign that this will be sufficient to assuage British Muslim voters, so ludicrous legislation to outlaw Islamophobia could be next up. Starmer’s obvious worries about his party’s standing in areas with high Muslim populations highlights just how complex his task at the next election will be. As well as facing another wave of independents in the inner cities, sitting Labour MPs with slim majorities will be attempting to fend off Greens in university towns, Reform in the Red Wall, the Tories in bellwether marginals and the SNP in Scotland.
Anyone who can figure out a coherent agenda which can do all that will go down as a presiding genius of British politics. Perhaps healthcare outcomes can be nudged upwards, which would presumably be welcomed by voters from all backgrounds. But aside from that only an economic miracle could cut the mustard.
In his first conference speech after his 1997 landslide win, Tony Blair declared: ‘Ours was not a victory of politicians but of people.’ Keir Starmer’s was just the opposite: a loveless landslide based on a third of the popular vote in a low-turnout contest dominated by the public’s focus on ejecting the ruling party.
No doubt Starmer’s activists will put on a show of enthusiasm for him in Liverpool this coming week. But there is notably little sign of public buy-in to the goals of his ‘mission-driven government’.
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