It's becoming obvious that Starmer simply isn't a leader

Telegraph

29-03-2025

Who runs Britain? In a world of all-powerful permanent secretaries, sprawling agencies and quangos, and growing activism in domestic and international courts, it's a question worth asking.
Whatever your answer, we can be certain it's not Sir Keir Starmer. In Get In, the tell-all account of Starmer's rise to the top of British politics, a member of the Prime Minister's inner circle quipped: 'Keir's not driving the train. He thinks he's driving the train, but we've sat him at the front of the DLR.'
So who is pulling the strings of our Potemkin Prime Minister? By most accounts, it is Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's Chief of Staff. McSweeney's verdict on the PM is damning: 'Keir acts like an HR manager, not a leader.' But he's certainly not an HR manager either – turning a blind eye to the Chancellor and Business Secretary fibbing on their CVs. What is the point of him?
Starmer appears oblivious to the enormous challenges facing the country. We have experienced nearly two decades of lost growth, a surge in violent crime, and unprecedented levels of mass migration have left parts of our major cities unrecognisable.
Britain's social fabric is fraying from the denigration of British culture and the proliferation of divisive identity politics, high energy prices are deindustrialising Britain, and our borders have been blown open by young men crossing in small boats.
The British state is as expensive and poorly planned as it has ever been and struggles to perform even the most basic functions well. The diagnosis is dire and the prescription must surely be something strong.
But so far this Government has done little more than rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic. Wherever you look, Starmer's Government is tinkering around the edges, seeking to manage failure, not turn things around.
Take the sense of lawlessness on our streets. Starmer's new Crime and Policing Bill has been heralded as a game-changer. But Labour's own impact assessment shows that they only envisage between 13 to 55 extra criminals going to jail every year.
Or look at defence spending, where Starmer talks with a straight face of moving the UK to a 'pre-war' state with just a £6 billion funding boost. Welfare spending is still forecast to rise even with his £3.4 billion pounds of savings, inevitably forcing the tax burden up higher still and killing any chance of growth. Labour has already missed its target for new homes and analysis shows the housing crisis will continue to worsen because demand from immigration will outstrip supply.
When it comes to the economy, he is actively making things worse. His tax hikes have led to the growth forecast being halved for this year, and Reeves's fiddling of the fiscal rules has massively backfired, with interest on debt now more than a £100 billion. Meanwhile Ed Miliband's head-first rush to reach net zero is crippling businesses and family finances.
As those who know him best have warned, Starmer simply isn't a leader. He is perfectly content for things to get worse, and flinches at the radical reforms needed to arrest decline. Even at the peak of his political powers he is timid, choosing to preserve his reputation within the British establishment as a status-quo politician that doesn't rock the boat. It's little wonder anti-politics sentiment is soaring and people have lost hope.
Starmer spent five years fighting a battle to make the Labour Party electable, root out anti-Semitism and defeat Corbynism. He largely succeeded. What he didn't spend five years doing is thinking about how to fix the broken state and turn the country around. His mission has been to restore the soul of Labour, not the country.
It meant that when he entered into Government he had no real plan, and no agenda for rebuilding Britain. Morgan McSweeney has been left to force-feed radicalism to a Prime Minister on hunger strike. If the penny does finally drop, it will be too late. The question is: what will be left of the country after four more years?