This article first appeared in the the ipaper
Feeling sorry for politicians is about the worst thing that can happen to them, but – and call me old-fashioned – even I have started to feel sorry for the flailing Keir Starmer.
The poor chap has earnt the epithet “beleaguered” after only six months in the job. Why? It’s simple. He can’t do basic politics and keeps making elementary errors.
Take this one, as a prime example. At the end of November, while trying to defend David Lammy over his past criticisms of Donald Trump, Starmer made a schoolboy error. He guaranteed Lammy his job as Foreign Secretary for the full parliamentary term of five years.
By guaranteeing Lammy his job, Starmer made a rod for his own back because sure as night follows day, when a future cabinet minister came under pressure, he’d be asked the same question about them.
On Monday that happened. Following his AI speech, Starmer was asked whether Rachel Reeves would still be Chancellor in five years’ time, given the current crisis over the pound and gilt rates. Having twice declined to confirm the Chancellor would stay in her job, the prime minister then committed the cardinal offence of telling the watching journalists, “I am confident in our mission for growth and I am confident, completely confident, in my team… Rachel Reeves is doing a fantastic job. She has my full confidence. She has the full confidence of the entire party.”
The man doth protest too much. When a football manager gets a vote of confidence from his chairman, it’s almost inevitable the sack will follow within weeks. Ask Sean Dyche or Julen Lopetegui. But then it got worse.
Later in the day the prime minister’s press secretary bowed to pressure and announced that Reeves would indeed retain her job throughout this Parliament. It’s amateur hour in No 10.
Presumably, when Home Secretary Yvette Cooper comes under pressure in the next Home Office crisis, they will have to offer her the same guarantee. Skilful politicians don’t box themselves in like Starmer has done.
This lack of judgement is only the tip of the iceberg. Rather like Rishi Sunak, Starmer is not a political being. He’s little more than a technocratic administrator. He didn’t rise through the ranks of the Labour Party like all his colleagues. Almost as soon as he was elected in 2015 he was thrust into the frontline in Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench team. He didn’t have time to learn the parliamentary tricks of the trade or even get to know and understand his colleagues.
Like Liz Truss, Starmer also lacks the charisma that is so vital to successful politicians in the modern age. He doesn’t connect with people in the way that both Tony Blair and Corbyn did.
His constant repetition of the same old mantras bore even his strongest supporters, but it is his constantly changing stances on important policy issues lead to people not trusting him, even if he does look like a reassuring bank manager. He ditched virtually every one of his leadership campaign pledges. Political expediency has led to his position on Brexit not just evolving but radically changing, to a point where few are sure what he really believes.
Starmer has shown a degree of ruthlessness in silencing internal dissent, something which may have been positive for him in the short term and reassured voters that he is not a Corbynista, but it’s inevitably stored up long-term trouble and left parts of the party feeling burned.
In a real crisis, it’s difficult to see who would form his praetorian guard. And all prime ministers need such people in times of political difficulty. He is trying to rally the troops to protect Reeves but it’s just as much to do with his own position as it is hers. If she falls, so could he.
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It is of course true that Labour won a huge majority at the last election, and as a result it seems almost unthinkable that Starmer could be ousted or lose the next election. Yet Margaret Thatcher won a landslide victory in 1987 and three-and-a-half years later she was forced out. I’m not predicting the same will happen to Starmer, but he knows as well as anyone that the landslide was based on a very shallow 33.7 per cent of the vote. It was an anti-Conservative vote rather than an enthusiastic one for Starmer.
Although he has displayed ruthlessness, he’s also been too loyal on occasion. He stood by his friend Tulip Siddiq when anybody with a hint of political fortune-telling ability knew that in the end she would have to resign. Loyalty is a praiseworthy quality, but not when it inevitably costs you reputationally. And sure enough, as I write this, Siddiq has resigned, issuing a statement which effectively says: “I’ve done nothing wrong”.
Of all the priorities on his desk, the PM now needs to concentrate on being a better politician. To do that, he needs to surround himself with people who can help him. Morgan McSweeney is not enough. Former senior members of the Blair and Gordon Brown administrations are tearing their hair out in utter frustration. He may have brought back Jonathan Powell as National Security Adviser, and Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington, but he needs to go far further if he is to turn things around.
It may seem unthinkable that Alastair Campbell would give up his lucrative podcasting life, or that the public would stomach his return, but it’s a Campbell-like no nonsense, tell it as it is, confidante that Starmer badly needs.
The question is, is there anyone out there who can fill that role?
