Starmer

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

It’s been a bruising few days for Keir Starmer. Disappointing results for the party in the north of England in the local elections have been made worse by his botched attempt over the weekend to reshuffle the shadow cabinet.  The Labour leader’s hopes for a swift refresh of his frontbench team hit a block in the road when his decision to sack his deputy Angela Rayner as party chairman led to a backlash from his MPs. After much negotiation, Starmer eventually managed to complete his reshuffle late on Sunday night.  During the meeting there was – according to one attendee – ‘plenty of grandstanding’ Today Starmer attempted to draw a line over recent events. The Labour

The election of a Conservative MP in Hartlepool for the first time in the constituency’s modern history is yet another wake-up call for my party. Peter Mandelson once enjoyed a 17,500 majority here. Now the Tories are deep into what was once safe Labour territory – the industrial heartlands of the North – with a 7,000 majority of their own. In the West Midlands it looks again like Labour will lose out on the mayoral race and more. What has gone wrong for the Labour party and our wider movement? My view is simple: in the past decade, Labour has lost touch with ordinary British people. A London-based bourgeoisie, with

There are two popular reactions to the Hartlepool by-election, which one you favour depending largely on your political tribe. The first holds that the white working class has reacted against a woke, metropolitan Labour party and its knee-taking leader, Keir Starmer. The second holds that the town’s racist and xenophobic population are still fearful that their beloved Brexit might yet be undone, and were desperate to vote against a Labour candidate who had backed Remain. Both of these narratives in fact boil down to pretty much the same thing: that the people of Hartlepool are a sad and angry bunch who tend to vote against things rather than vote for

Campaigning in the Hartlepool by-election is reaching its feverish final hours as the Labour party tries to hold onto the seat. There has been sufficient talk of the party losing the constituency for such a result not to come as a shock if it does happen. Indeed, many in the party are already talking as though they have lost, openly discussing what might happen next. It is clear that while the Left of the party will use this as evidence that Starmer’s plan to rescue the party isn’t cutting through, there won’t – or can’t – be a serious challenge to his leadership from this faction. What we are more

Keir Starmer is only a year into his job as Labour leader, but could his time in charge soon come to an end? Starmer is under increasing pressure following his failure to revitalise Labour. A bad set of results on 6 May could mean the final nail in the coffin. If Starmer is ousted – and that remains a big if, given the lack of viable contenders for the job – Corbyn’s critics within the Labour party will quickly find themselves in a difficult position. With no heir apparent on the Labour right, Starmer’s departure could easily mean the left taking control of Labour all over again. Yvette Cooper has

Can things get any worse for Keir Starmer? Yes appears to be the answer, if the latest YouGov poll is anything to go on. While the Tories have surged ahead to 43 per cent, support for Labour has tumbled down to 29 per cent. It’s important not to blow a single poll out of proportion, but nonetheless these numbers make for grim reading for the Labour leader. That 14 per cent lead for the Conservatives is the largest since mid-May 2020, when the recently elected Starmer was still digging his party out of the polling abyss of the Corbyn period. A year on – and coming weeks before a crucial

Labour’s recovery under Keir Starmer has, for the moment, stalled. Most surveys suggest voters are less inclined than they once were to see him as ‘prime ministerial’ and his party as ready for government. It is too early to say if this is due to the pandemic looking like it is finally under Conservative ministers’ control or to inherent problems with Starmer’s own pitch to the public. But it confirms that after Labour’s appalling 2019 general election result, if Starmer ever ends up in Number 10 it’ll be close to an electoral miracle. During his first year as leader Starmer has tried to find ways of winning back voters who

Political parties like to think of themselves as being a ‘broad church’ when tackled about conflicting views among members. It makes it all the more ironic then that it was a visit to a church which exposed a challenging split in the Labour party. Keir Starmer’s trip to Jesus House last week resulted in him apologising for associating with people who believe homosexuality to be a sin. The Labour party can ill-afford to keep excluding groups of voters. The difficulty for Starmer (and for many who wish there to be a viable alternative government) is that left-wing politics is increasingly an ‘AND’ movement. This means that to be welcome on the

A lot of politicians go through phases with phrases – falling back on buzzwords and self-coined instant cliches when seeking to set out a thought to interviewers or people that they meet. Often this becomes the subject of private jokes between their spin doctors – with sneaky glances and wry smiles greeting the umpteenth rolling out of the latest favoured soundbite. Keir Starmer has a classic just now, a belter of a mixed metaphor to boot. He cannot wait, he tells people, ‘to take off the mask and open the throttle’. The saying has such an irresistible air of Accidental Partridge that I’d be surprised were it not to have

‘Some Christians believe homosexuality is a sin — get over it.’ I feel like this needs to be made into a poster. Or put on the side of a bus, perhaps. Because, amazingly, there are people out there who seem not to realise that traditionally minded Christians think it is wrong for a man to lie with a man as he would with a woman. Consider the mad controversy over Keir Starmer’s visit to Jesus House in London on Good Friday. Jesus House, in Brent, is part of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Pentecostal ‘megachurch’ founded in Nigeria in the 1950s. It has a large following among traditionalist

At the start of 2021, Labour and the Tories were neck and neck in the polls. Only three months later, a YouGov poll out this week has the Conservatives ten points up on Starmer’s party. This popularity dive comes at the worst possible time for Labour, with a crucial set of local elections, mayoral contests, Scottish parliament elections and the Hartlepool by-election to consider. Starmer is powerless to control some of the forces causing Labour’s slump. But there is one big thing he could do that would help: clear out the dead wood from his shadow cabinet. Rumours about Starmer opting for a reshuffle have been so ubiquitous lately that the

Sir Keir Starmer will want to forget today’s PMQs. And fast. The Labour leader began with a strategic error. Instead of hounding the Prime Minister on a single issue he chose three unrelated topics: Covid, army numbers and steel production. Typical Sir Keir. Why use effective tactics when useless ones are available? To be fair, he had a trump card up his sleeve. The Tory manifesto in 2019 specifically ruled out cuts to the size of the military. And in a newspaper interview, Boris said that the number of 82,000 personnel would be maintained. But 10,000 are about to go. So the PM fibbed. The game was up. And what