Labour’s first 100 days: the verdict 

This Saturday marks Labour’s 100th day in office. But they are unlikely to be popping champagne corks in Downing Street – even if Lord Alli offered to pay for the Dom Pérignon. This has been a disheartening time for the government and those who wished it well. The promise of dramatic change has been overshadowed by a series of errors, misjudgments and scandals that one would associate more with an administration in its dying days than a government enjoying a fresh mandate, a massive majority and an absent opposition.

Ministers might fondly hope voters will have been encouraged by the introduction of legislation to help renters, the abolition of one-word Ofsted judgments or the establishment of Great British Energy. But these achievements, if one can call them that, have been eclipsed by the Great British Farce of cabinet ministers’ birthday parties paid for by millionaires, spousal wardrobes stuffed by donors and access to Downing Street secured at the drop of an optician’s bill.

If the government had proved sure–footed and accomplished in its other dealings, such undignified transactions might not have excited much scorn. But an early decision to remove winter fuel payments from all save a minority of pensioners while handing handsome pay rises to already well-remunerated train drivers – compounded by confusion over plans for VAT on private school fees and consternation at the idea of banning smoking in pub gardens – have all contributed to the sense of a government at once heartless, maladroit and missing the big picture.

William Hague once observed that New Labour would inspire first fascination, then admiration, then disillusionment and finally contempt. He was right. But what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown achieved after 13 years, Keir Starmer has accomplished in a mere three months.