Labour’s new hope? No, you’re a bit of a dud Keir
THESE are dangerous days for the UK Government. As immediate health concerns regarding the pandemic recede and the world starts returning to normal, the global impact of the event is beginning to hit domestic supply lines.
Household gas shortages threaten to put up bills just as we enter winter. An HGV driver shortage made worse by foreignborn drivers returning home during Covid, and test centres shutting, has hit the recruitment and accreditation of new drivers. This is hampering everything from getting food to the shops and petrol to the forecourts.
The only time William Hague’s Conservative opposition even came close to overtaking Tony Blair’s Labour government was during the fuel shortages and protests in the autumn of 2000.
As Labour MPs and activists prepared for the opening of their party conference on Friday morning, a new poll dropped.
Amongst this maelstrom, affecting voters’ electricity bills, fuel bills, even what they can buy in the shops, the Conservative lead had widened to seven points. Why? Quite simply, because Keir Starmer is a dud.
I don’t say that as a true-blue Tory, brandishing my rosette, hoping that by saying it out loud, I might wish it into reality. No, in an odd way, I really wanted him to be good.
After the omnishambles of the Corbyn leadership that led one of the two main political parties of the UK so far from the mainstream, I really wanted Starmer to show what effective and thoughtful opposition could be – and how powerful it is in making a government better, pushing Ministers and departments to up their game, knowing that should they falter, there was a credible alternative waiting in the wings.
And, I’ll admit it, I was impressed with the Starmer back story. The big job as Director of Public Prosecutions – in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service and responsible for taking dangerous criminals off the street.
Even the ability to navigate
Corbyn’s shadow cabinet without alienating the Left, while quite clearly being one of the grownups in the room who could bridge the distance to Labour’s Brownite and Blairite past, was impressive in its own way.
I wasn’t alone. When Starmer was elected leader last spring, the goodwill towards him from ordinary Brits was huge. His net approval rating after his first month was +22, YouGov found.
It sounds silly almost, but the sigh of relief to have a Labour Party leader who looked like a potential Prime Minister – wore a suit, wouldn’t look out of place in a photo with Merkel and Macron – was almost palpable.
To have one who was clearly clever, wasn’t an IRA-supporting Marxist and who didn’t think the answer to Russia carrying out a chemical attack on British soil (as with the Skripal poisonings) was to send the evidence to Russia so they could tell us if they did it or not, was real progress. But then… nothing. I don’t know what he’s been doing. A year and a half into the job and he’s landed no significant hits – despite the unprecedented circumstance of Covid meaning lots of decisions were taken on the hoof, without full information.
There’s no sense that he’s built a united team, and in fact so few people know what Starmer stands for – a full year and a half after he took office – that he’s felt the need to publish a 12,500-word essay to lay it out.
With fuel and food shortages, and a potential cost of living crisis affecting everyone’s bills, Labour couldn’t even put a spokesman up for the breakfast shows this week to give the Government a kicking. They were too busy talking about the technicalities of an internal rule change.
Labour has a few hundred thousand members. There are 64 million people in Britain potentially affected by what’s going on.
To ignore their needs in favour of an internecine process fight is criminal.
Starmer’s net approval rating with YouGov has now dropped to -39. Not being Jeremy Corbyn is not enough. Starmer’s had 18 months and the public has decided that whatever ‘it’ is, he hasn’t got it.
He’s a dud. Time for someone who can get a competitive team on the pitch.