For millions of voters nothing has changed since Labour won – here's how Starmer can turn things around

The Sun

5 hours ago

IF I wrote here that everything had gone well in the last year in politics, you would stop reading.
So this is an honest appraisal of how I think the Government, which I support, has fared since winning the election on July 4.
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The first big decision, which was intended to secure the confidence of the international bond markets, created a major political hit.
Namely, the now-reversed decision on Winter Fuel Allowance, affecting up to 10million people in retirement.
The intention was to offer economic rectitude and stability, but the consequence was an immediate collapse in popularity.
This was matched by the 'miserabilist' messages that they were picking up the pieces from years of chaos.
It was true that there were major gaps in public finances, which somehow had to be filled if services weren't to fall apart.
But the electorate had already got that message.
That's why, across the whole of the country, the Conservatives lost so badly.
What people wanted was hope, and what they got was downbeat at best, doom and gloom at worst.
Steadying the ship and balancing the books is worthy, but in a world of political turmoil, of populists and chancers, the electorate were looking for precisely what Keir Starmer had promised — 'change'.
The truth is, there has been genuine action to put things right.
Keir Starmer 'to BACK DOWN' on benefits cuts as he faces major revolt from MPs
Enormous cash for the NHS; a commitment to a dramatic housebuilding target; and investment in transport, clean energy and education to bring success in the long term.
The problem is that they are 'long term' at a moment when so many people are looking for dramatic improvement in the here and now.
That is why the opinion polls are so devastating for the two traditional mainstream political parties.
As with American President Donald Trump, the audacious, bizarre, sometimes off-the-wall and completely incredible catch people's attention.
The 'same old' of tinkering and ticking along feels like business as usual.
Learning curve
But it is 'business as usual' that many people just do not want.
So, if the first 12 months have been a learning curve, what are the lessons for the years ahead?
Quite simply, build on what you've done best.
'The best' includes Britain's standing on the world stage.
Dealing with world security and defence; alliances to tackle conflict across the world; reaching trade deals and even managing to square the circle of relationships with the US President.
All of this in the last six months has been both impressive and vitally necessary.
More of this decisiveness, and grasping of nettles here at home, would make all the difference.
For instance, stop using phrases like 'working at pace' and actually get on with the job.
One of the features of the last year, and long before that, is a kind of inertia.
I'm sure that civil servants genuinely believe they're working hard. I'm sure that ministers believe they have joined up policies and that, when they pull a lever, something is happening on the ground.
For millions of voters, however, nothing has changed.
That is why action in the pipeline now needs to be accelerated.
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That is why relentless focus on delivery at local level is so vital, and tangible change in the lives of men and women who can only watch on as global conflict and turmoil unfold.
However — and it has to be said — not everything is down to government.
The lousy service you receive (public or private), gross incompetence and indifference to the wellbeing of others is as likely to be the fault of someone living down your street as it is elected politicians.
This government has three years to demonstrate that they can really make a difference.
Three years in which to stop Reform UK leader Nigel Farage deluding the nation into believing there are simple and easy answers to the greatest questions of our time.
Failure to live up to those expectations or get it wrong, the consequences will be felt for generations to come.
Self-evidently, I didn't get everything right in my time in government.
So, learning from mistakes and shifting up a gear is the way forward for Keir Starmer and his ministerial team.
There is still time to turn this around.
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A clueless, cowardly windsock of a PM whose politics of deceit has taken him from loveless landslide…to landfill
By Trevor Kavanagh
FOR what it is worth, I am neither surprised nor disappointed by Sir Keir Starmer's calamitous first year as Prime Minister.
Sir Shifty was always going to be a dud in Downing Street just as he was in opposition.
What has really shocked me — along with millions of Sun readers — is his swift and spiteful attack on the social fabric which binds our nation and our trust in democracy.
On July 4 last year, Britain carelessly elected an activist regime, whose sole but unstated objective is to unravel everything that makes us British.
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In the blink of an eye we have been divided by a narrow socialist cult against an overwhelming majority of decent, fair-minded law-abiding citizens.
We are being routinely lied to, ordered to believe the unbelievable and threatened with jail if we refuse.
For all his fine words to Nato and to Parliament, Starmer and his socialist rabble are intent on attacking the foundations of our democracy — the rule of law and the defence of the nation.
Left-wing zealots
Thin-skinned Starmer is not just clueless as a political leader. He is a coward who runs like a yellow streak from every tough decision that crosses his desk.
Indeed, our windsock PM has just surrendered even the pretence of leadership. This week, he became the publicly humiliated hostage of the Corbynite left he once boasted of defeating.
Close to collapse, Downing Street has abjectly surrendered over a piffling £5billion cut in the bloated welfare bill. This places Starmer at the mercy of Jeremy's loony left.
Two-Tier Keir might continue to strut the world stage as an international statesman. But this emperor has no clothes.
If he cannot cut a few quid off the handouts to nine million people on employment-related benefits, how can he persuade left-wing zealots to cough up billions for defence? Or to cut illegal immigration and 'smash the gangs'?
The people smugglers backed by the Kremlin's Vladimir Putin — as The Sun revealed this week — will keep sending us tens of thousands of bearded young men of fighting age.
Corbynites do not believe in borders. Nor do they believe in crime and punishment — unless there is a Tory in the dock.
Sir Shifty stubbornly defied calls for a proper inquiry into the rape of thousands of white teenage girls by mainly Pakistani gangs in mainly Labour-controlled authorities.
Cabinet ministers were licensed to smear protesters as 'far right dog-whistlers'. A backlash was inevitable.
Thousands of angry voters fled from Labour. Along with Tory defectors, they swelled the ranks of Reform UK and turned insurgent Nigel Farage into the man most likely to be our next PM.
Now, in a screeching U-turn, there will be a national grooming gang inquiry after all. So, landslide to landfill in a single year.
Farage is entitled to celebrate. He has reaped the whirlwind from the collapse of two-party politics.
Still, Reform has only five MPs and virtually nobody in the House of Lords.
Nor is it any consolation that Labour's Pyrrhic victory last July was entirely due to 14 years of dismal Tory failure. David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Liz Truss and — not least — Boris Johnson have much to answer for.
Along with Rishi Sunak, Boris hammered the final nails into the Tory coffin with Covid lockdowns and one million new migrants in a single year.
The result was a great Fourth of July belch of anti-Tory revulsion, which handed Labour class warriors their 'loveless landslide' and absolute power for five years.
We know now that it was a victory based on lies.
Deceit runs through Starmer's brand of politics like 'Brighton' through a stick of rock.
Deceit is more than telling blatant porkies, such as promising not to raise tax or National Insurance.
It means concealing the truth, like Labour's plan to axe the Winter Fuel Allowance.
It involves gaslighting — coercing people to believe in fairytales, such as green energy, bending the knee to Black Lives Matter or claiming women can have a penis.
And there are petty deceits, such as the gifts to our multi-millionaire PM of free suits and specs, and designer frocks for Lady Starmer, from an ambitious party donor.
Starmer's Labour was deep in such tacky mire before last year's election, and it has continued in that style since.
We were told porkies about £20billion 'black holes' in Britain's genuinely improving economy.
We were promised the 'adults were back in charge', only to see Chancellor Rachel Reeves send borrowing into orbit while trashing our reputation as a magnet for foreign investment.
We were told lies about gifting the strategically vital Chagos islands to China's military ally, Mauritius, with the true cost to the taxpayer being in excess of £30BILLION over 99 years.
Starmer promised Labour would repair the sacred NHS, only for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to admit it is getting worse.
But if there is one single issue that sums up the cant, hypocrisy and contempt for voters by both major parties, it is the flood of uncontrolled mass immigration.
Labour's traditional working class supporters, many in Red Wall seats, were shamed and silenced after Gordon Brown opened the floodgates to cheap imported labour.
Those daring to protest are slandered as 'racist' or 'Islamophobic'.
Yet the UK population has boomed by millions since, with a dire impact on the wages and living standards of voters Labour took for granted.
Rightly or wrongly — rightly in my view — voters believe this inevitable clash of cultures has led to dangerous divisions in cities and major towns.
It remains shocking that police failed to act against Pakistani grooming gangs for fear of stoking 'community tensions'.
Growing anger
Last year's Southport riots, stridently denounced by Starmer, were blamed on police silence over the racial background of the man who fatally stabbed three schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift dance class.
There is growing anger over Labour's plans to create new blasphemy laws, meaning criticism of Islam would be a criminal offence, while police turn a blind eye to intimidation by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Keir Starmer is a lifelong pro-Palestinian. His party and his government are beholden to Muslims who vote Labour.
Labour lives in fear of moves by Muslim hardliners to set up their own party in Parliament with enough MPs to dictate coalition terms.
The question now is whether Starmer can cling on for four more years as Prime Minister.
Can his Labour government survive in power?