Starmer’s first big test

During the election campaign, Keir Starmer confessed to taking Friday nights off. ‘I’ve been doing this for years – I will not do a work-related thing after six o’clock, pretty well come what may,’ he told a radio host. But one month into his premiership, and the Prime Minister is struggling even to take his pre-planned summer holiday.

Claims that Labour’s decisive victory would make the UK a pocket of stability in a polarised world now look hubristic. Starmer leads a country that others such as Australia and Malaysia are warning their citizens not to travel to. Meanwhile he is engulfed in a very public Twitter spat with tech billionaire Elon Musk. As if in response to No. 10’s concerns about the role of social media in fuelling the disorder, Musk has shared some of the most incendiary videos to his 193 million followers and declared civil war in the UK to be ‘inevitable’. It’s a far cry from Rishi Sunak’s decision to host Musk for a cosy fireside chat at the government’s AI summit last year.

After just a month in power, Starmer is facing his first crisis – but it is one he ought to be well prepared for. During the 2011 London riots he was director of public prosecutors and aided a ‘lock them up’ strategy to administer swift and tough justice to deter other disturbances. He has done the same this time, promising 500 more prison places and late-night court sittings. But the disorder is showing little signs of dissipating. The public seem unimpressed. A YouGov poll found that Britons tend to think Starmer is handling the riots badly and his personal approval ratings have plummeted.