Starmer has entered the ‘degeneration' phase. His MPs are in despair
It was a very jolly affair, with prosecco on hand as Camilla, Gordon Rayner, our Associate Editor, and I discussed the state of politics and answered questions. The biggest worry in the audience was that Starmer was simply Tony Blair in disguise, and was being 'run' by Labour's most successful Prime Minister in history via his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute.
This was nonsense, I suggested. Blair was far too Right-wing for Starmer.
Chatting afterwards, a number of attendees came up to me to make a point about what being 'Prime Minister of the country' meant to them.
'We have to give him a chance,' one Conservative voter said. 'He won, it's good to end the chaos, and he is the leader now. As long as he is sensible, we will see how it goes.'
This is a very British view of politics and one I wholeheartedly support. The office of Prime Minister is one to be respected, politicians need time to affect change and following the psychodramas of Boris Johnson and the rest a period of calm would be very much welcomed.
I wonder how that Conservative voter is feeling now. After a reasonable opening day speech about governing for everyone, Starmer has induced nausea. Freebie gifts revealed that it was still 'one rule for them'. With no discussion or preparation, the Winter Fuel Allowance was scrapped for all but the lowest paid pensioners. A £22 billion 'black hole' appeared to come as a shock to the Chancellor despite every sensible analyst saying before the election that the public finances were shot. The Budget raised taxes after Labour promises that it would not.
'I need to fix the foundations,' Rachel Reeves told voters as the polls started slipping. Starmer agreed. 'Growth' was everything and 'tough Labour' would not be indulging in any U-turns. Even that gargantuan and ever-increasing benefits bill would be tackled.
Being controversial can have a point in politics – as long as you stick to the course. Starmer has done the opposite, the lead character in a political tragedy about a man who wanted to be king but did not know why. The PM has confused noise from opponents, backbenchers and pressure groups with the very different purpose of running the country.
The result has been strategic chaos – a disaster for anyone residing in Number 10. Where once he was positive about the effects of immigration, now he is talking about 'an island of strangers'. Where the cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance were an absolute necessity – now they will be at least partially reversed (although when and by how much will be a political running sore for months to come). The two child benefit cap is likely to be lifted. The UK will be in and not in the European Union.
I speak to many senior Labour figures every week. They pinpoint the disastrous local elections as the moment Starmer buckled afresh, casting around in desperation for anything that might shift momentum. A caucus of Red Wall Labour MPs, led by Jo White, demanded changes, particularly to disability benefit cuts. 'We will not budge,' Downing Street insisted, exactly as they had done over the Winter Fuel Allowance. Few believe that position will hold.
Negative briefings are starting to swirl around Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff. Enemies point out, and there are many, that the 'hard choices' approach has given way too easily to 'I'll U-turn if you want me to'. Policies that MPs expended a lot of energy defending are now being abandoned, the quickest way to lose faith on the back benches. Nearly 200 Labour councillors lost their jobs in the May elections, a rich seam of angry activists who blame the man at the top.
Starmer and Sweeney go back, to the dark days of the Hartlepool by-election loss in 2021 when Labour was trounced by the Conservatives. Starmer considered quitting and outsourced much of his political thinking to McSweeney, who picked him up and dusted him off. The Corbyn-lite approach that had won the PM the Labour leadership was jettisoned and 'sensible Starmer' took its place, the dry technocrat who would focus on what works.
Labour MPs of the modernising tendency fear Corbyn-lite is creeping back. Adrift in a sea of collapsing personal ratings, Starmer is trying his own form of 'back to basics' – the basics of 'all will have jam' Left wing economics.
'We have no idea who is driving the bus,' said one well placed Labour figure on the chopping and changing at the centre. 'It is not about jam today or jam tomorrow. With no growth there is no jam.'
Reeves is in an increasingly precarious position. She marched into the gunfire with a degree of political bravery, insisting that her decisions had to be taken to re-energise the economy.
My Treasury sources insist there are glimmers of hope that the strategy is working. The first three months of the year saw growth above estimates. Business confidence has started to pick up. In the spending review on June 11, the Chancellor will announce billions of pounds in capital investment in transport hubs, energy, schools, hospitals and research and development. These are the right policies.
The PM is striding in the opposite direction, creating a tension between Number 10 and Number 11 that never augurs well for good government. When Labour published its manifesto in 2024, the only person beyond Starmer himself to appear regularly in the glossy photographs was Reeves. Now it would be Angela Rayner, who is noisily demanding more tax rises.
Like grief, governments travel through five phases. Euphoria, honeymoon, stability, degeneration, failure.
Starmer has managed to leap-frog the first three and has entered 'degeneration' well before the first anniversary of a victory which gave him a 171 seat majority. Even his allies look on baffled, failing to understand that government is difficult, that you cannot gyrate between policy positions and expect appalling poll numbers to improve. Leading requires courage, vision and an ability to communicate. Consistency is the prosaic truth that the Prime Minister has failed to grasp.
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