Starmer

Even before the embargo was lifted on Keir Starmer’s much-trailed and super-long Fabian pamphlet, The Road Ahead, commentators and critics were already putting the boot in. By writing his 12,000 words or so, all the Labour leader had seemingly achieved was the creation of a consensus, one stretching from the Spectator to the Guardian, that all he had painfully gestated was a cliché-ridden disaster, groaning with platitudes stolen from focus groups. The best thing that was said about it was that the pamphlet was so long and so turgid, hardly anybody would read it. How many ideas a party leader requires to be effective, and from where they should come,

Keir Starmer this evening managed to scrape through his reforms to how Labour elects its leader. The victory follows a very passionate debate at the party’s conference over the policy, which will raise the qualifying threshold of support from MPs in leadership elections from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. It also drops registered supporters, who could join by paying just £3, from being able to vote in leadership elections and introduces a cut-off date for membership when a contest begins. The idea is that when there is a new leadership contest after Starmer, Labour won’t end up electing a fringe candidate. In other words, it is designed to stop

Keir Starmer’s incredible shrinking pamphlet was initially said to run to 14,000 words, then 13,000, then 12,500 and now 11,000 is even being mentioned. As someone who has read it from start to finish, let me assure you that whichever of those word counts is accurate, it’s still much too long. But those who are disparaging the document as useless are nevertheless barking up the wrong tree. In fact, it is a tremendously useful document – but useful to the Conservatives rather than Labour. Because while earnest Sir Keir has failed to come up with anything that will produce the kind of visceral connection with the electorate that could presage

One of the most shocking images from the Corbyn years of the Labour party was Luciana Berger flanked by police officers at Labour conference. Here was a Labour MP who had been subjected to so much hostility and outright racism from cesspit leftists that she felt unsafe at her own annual party gathering. That a Jewish woman was made to feel so unwelcome, so threatened, was a black mark against the Corbynista left. I would never have guessed that Keir Starmer, the anti-Corbyn, the man who said he would rescue Labour from its nutty wing and restore its respectability, would have a similarly shameful moment. And yet he has. At

Who is Keir Starmer, and what does ‘Starmerism’ stand for? Well into his second year as Labour leader and most Britons remain unsure. It’s not as if Starmer hasn’t spent a lot of time and effort – and so many words – in trying to define himself: he was even interviewed by Piers Morgan for an hour on ITV to highlight his human side.  But something has gone wrong. Is it the message or the messenger? Or is the difficult Covid-dominated times in which he became leader that is to blame? Whatever the reason for Starmer’s curiously forgettable leadership, it is now imperative that Starmer starts to make a clear and positive

Boris Johnson has had a very uncomfortable start to today’s Commons debate on Afghanistan. Not only did he have a series of critical interventions from his own backbenchers when he was speaking, he then had to sit through an unusually powerful speech from Sir Keir Starmer. The Leader of the Opposition criticised the PM’s ‘careless leadership’, slammed the Foreign Secretary’s ‘dereliction of duty’ in remaining on holiday as the situation worsened, and pointed to an ‘unforgivable’ lack of planning over the 18 months following Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban.  This was swiftly followed by an equally furious Theresa May. She reminded her successor that he and Joe Biden had indicated

Brexit is done and dusted, but when it comes to playing politics on the UK’s departure from the EU, the Labour party is still managing to get itself in a muddle. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is the latest Labour frontbencher to send confusing messages about Brexit to voters.  Starmer’s party, we are told, wants to come to an arrangement with the European Union on recognition of professional standards, something Boris Johnson’s deal lacks. Labour is also seeking a bespoke veterinary agreement with the EU to overcome problems inherent in the Northern Ireland Protocol as it stands. The party also wants to make it easier for British bands to tour on the continent. Yet

There is a problem with Sir Keir Starmer’s reported plan to expel 1,000 Labour members associated with ‘poisonous’ groups, and not just that there are way more than a thousand poisonous people in the Labour party. The problem – and it’s a common error – is that Sir Keir exaggerates the role played by the far-left in bringing Labour to the point where it has lost four general elections in a row and last led the Tories in a poll almost six months ago. The cranks became more visible after Ed Miliband’s election as leader, more numerous thanks to his three-quid revolution and more powerful when that policy put Jeremy

Labour is unhappy with the government’s plan for unlocking, with leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it ‘reckless’. In the Commons this afternoon, shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth and then shadow education secretary Kate Green complained about the statements from their ministerial counterparts. Ashworth treated fellow MPs to the slightly bizarre spectacle of him waving a paper Sajid Javid had written on pandemics while at Harvard, which seemed an incongruous political stunt. All the more discordant is the party’s stance on unlocking, which seems to be to complain about it happening while offering a plan that isn’t vastly different. It is urging the government to keep mandatory mask rules to stop

As Keir Starmer’s re-run of the great Change UK centrist dad experiment sinks deeper into political quicksand, the importance of a party leader being able to project a compelling personality becomes ever more obvious. Even the pinko pundit class that was overjoyed by his election as Labour leader is now close to giving up on Starmer, whose lack of ringcraft reminds us that there is something to be said for career politicians after all. Ambitious shadow ministers with antennae more finely tuned in to the public mood than his are said already to be preparing prospective leadership campaign teams in anticipation of the voters of Batley and Spen delivering a

What is it with Labour and Brexit? An issue that during Theresa May’s premiership looked like it could rip the Conservative party apart has instead made them electorally invincible – and caused huge problems for the Labour party.  For that reason, Keir Starmer tends to avoid the topic these days, seeking to show that he and his party have ‘moved on’. But some days, he can’t help himself. Yesterday was one of those days. Speaking about the Northern Ireland protocol on the radio, Starmer said: ‘We do need to remind the Prime Minister that he signed on the dotted line: this is what he negotiated. If he’s saying it doesn’t

If they have any sense – a proposition I will test later – officials from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru will be beginning meetings to work out a pact for the 2023/24 election. If they do not agree to a joint programme, there’s a good chance that Conservatives will be in power until a sizeable portion of this article’s readership is dead. The next redrawing of constituency boundaries in 2023 is almost certain to favour the Conservatives, adding ten seats to the already unhittable target of 123 constituencies Labour needs to win to govern on its own. There’s a possibility that Scotland could be independent by the end

The Labour leader is in trouble. His party has been cast adrift from its moorings in the working-class and is languishing in opposition. He has tried to drag Labour towards electability, but so far, his only reward has been members’ hostility and plots for his removal. If his Conservative counterpart, safe in No. 10, is hardly impressive, the voters seem to like him much more: 48 per cent see the Labour leader as simply ‘boring’ and many aren’t even sure what he stands for. This is not a pen portrait of Keir Starmer. It is, instead, a description of George Jones, David Hare’s fictional Labour leader, and the protagonist of

Keir Starmer’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ is a sign of desperation. The Labour leader knows he must do something about the dire situation his party is in, following the disastrous defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. One of the big criticisms levelled at Starmer is that he lacks charisma. His decision to agree to be interviewed by Morgan is an attempt to do something about that, by showing people the ‘real’ Starmer. Unfortunately, though, it seems there are some things that remain off limits, not least what Starmer the student got up to during his time at Leeds university.  Morgan quizzed Starmer at least ten times on whether the

How do you tell a politician who has just been punched in the face by the electorate that something is looming that will cause him a bigger and far longer-lasting headache? Keir Starmer probably already has an inkling about the next tortuous twist facing his Labour leadership: mounting pressure to open talks with the leaders of other left-of-centre parties about forming an electoral pact. The weekend’s latest opinion poll by YouGov set out the nightmare trap into which the left in general and the Labour party in particular has fallen. The party ratings were as follows: Conservatives 46, Labour 28, Greens 8, Lib Dems 8, SNP 5, Reform UK 2,

The most outlandish political joke of the moment is the idea that the Labour party believes in strong border controls. Keir Starmer gave it a run out in PMQs yesterday, berating Boris Johnson by observing:  ‘Our borders have been wide open pretty much throughout the pandemic.’ Yvette Cooper, chair of the Home Affairs select committee, has also been unleashing her trademark owlish looks of disapproval at ministers over an alleged lack of stringency in Covid-related immigration measures. During the Queen’s Speech debate she complained:  ‘For months on end there were no public health border measures in place at all.’ Labour presumably hopes that to be seen outflanking the Tories on

Campaigning to become Labour leader last year, Keir Starmer said Harold Wilson was his favourite party leader of the last fifty years because he had unified the party. This was hardly a coincidence as putting an end to ‘factionalism’ was then one of Starmer’s main promises to Labour members. Subsequently Starmer has name checked Wilson in various speeches, especially noting his predecessor’s electoral success – and repeating his 1962 claim that Labour was ‘a moral crusade or it is nothing.’ From these references, Wilson who died in 1995 emerges (and so, presumably was the intention, also Starmer) as a man of principle and an election winner: what’s not to like?

That vast battalion of pinko pundits who confidently expected Boris Johnson to get a drubbing in last week’s elections has already reached a consensus on why it is that he did so well and Keir Starmer so badly. To summarise: the Prime Minister is a lucky general who benefited from a ‘vaccine bounce’. He will fall straight back down to earth once this current crisis is over. The electorate will soon start concentrating on what really matters, like the cost of his curtains. In the long list of reasons why Labour keeps losing, its tendency to underestimate and misunderstand its opponents should figure large. Because the truth of the matter is that

Keir Starmer is having a torrid time. Today brings another poll showing his personal approval rating falling. The Labour leader is now down to a net score of minus 22. But Starmer’s leadership, or lack of it, is far from being Labour’s biggest problem.  The party’s fundamental issue is that its old electoral coalition has fallen apart in recent years; the 2014 Scottish referendum and the 2016 Brexit referendum detached large sections of the party’s traditional base from it. Starmer’s problem is that the constituent parts of the traditional Labour coalition are moving ever further apart. Many of his metropolitan voters regard Brexity provincials with disdain. If Starmer went all

As the Greek debt crisis took hold in the wake of the financial crash, there was one big political casualty. The main centre-left party PASOK — which had dominated Greek politics since the early eighties — collapsed, going from a comfortable 43.9 per cent of the vote to 13.2 per cent in 2012. A decade on, the party has failed to recover – and the grim news for Keir Starmer’s Labour party is that it faces its own version of Pasokification, one where the fall is slow rather than spectacular, and in which the left could find itself trapped. It might be hard to imagine British politics without the Labour