Before Keir Starmer managed to escape Westminster for the relative safety of a European summit discussing war, the Prime Minister had to hold a cabinet meeting. The PM told colleagues they needed to hold their nerve, arguing that: ‘I do not underestimate the scale of the task. But I have no doubt about this team. Governments do not lose because polls go down. They lose when they lose belief or nerve. We will do neither.’ The readout from Downing Street also said that ministers discussed ‘successful recoveries of centre-left parties in Norway, Australia and Canada through focusing on delivery and cost of living issues’.
Once again, Starmer was giving instructions to his ministers that he seems unable to follow himself
All of this sounds very well and good, but once again Starmer was giving instructions to his ministers that he seems unable to follow himself. He has repeatedly u-turned over major policies, showing that if anyone needs to hold their nerve – or at least set out knowing why he’s doing something so he doesn’t end up u-turning later – it’s the Prime Minister. Indeed, one of the reasons his party has lost its nerve is that his MPs aren’t sure he knows what he wants to do, and if he does, that he forgets along the way, like someone going purposefully upstairs, only to struggle to remember what they were after once they’ve reached the top step, and wander disconsolately back down again. The welfare u-turn, for instance, followed a familiar path of the government knowing it had to do something about welfare reform, not really thinking through what that thing might be and allowing the Treasury to hijack that reform to cut spending, and then losing nerve totally in face of a revolt from Labour backbenchers who already knew that if they pushed for long enough, the government would cave eventually.
Similarly, focusing on delivery is a noble aim, but you need to know what you want to deliver, and Starmer still seems bamboozled by the answer to that question on so many fronts. He came into government promising something better than the Tories, but hadn’t done enough detailed thinking on what that thing might be, other than some vague professionalism avoiding psychodrama. He has manifestly failed to deliver on the latter.
Now, he thinks that talking about the cost of living non-stop will at least make things a little less awful for Labour in May’s elections, so expect to hear him talking about breakfast clubs, energy bills and interest rates. His team see these topics as being the way to drive up Starmer’s own poll ratings with voters, therefore preventing him from being such a drag on the party too.
Cost of living is also something many members of his cabinet think Starmer should zero in on, given the success of Zohran Mamdani’s focus on what he called ‘affordability’ in the New York mayoral contest.
What Starmer doesn’t know is whether voters will give him as much credit for talking about these issues from within government, rather than on a campaign trail – or indeed whether his party will credit any silver linings in May’s results to their leader, rather than something else. No wonder he still finds international diplomacy easier than dealing with his own party.
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