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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
All governments decay eventually. What distinguishes Keir Starmer’s is the speed with which the necrosis has set in. After little more than 18 months in office, it already resembles the last months of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, consumed by internal despair and constant leadership speculation.
The policy retreats and struggles to drive through any issue that discomforts its MPs have rendered a newish government more like a fag-end administration. The lament for the lost leadership of Andy Burnham — blocked by Starmer from returning to parliament and thus challenging him — is less a demand for a more leftwing agenda (though it is partly that), or deep-rooted belief in the Manchester mayor, than a desire for renewal. How, ask his MPs, have we reached this stage so soon?
But we and they already know the answers: the grim economic inheritance; the legacy of Brexit and austerity; a manifesto of such caution it restricted Labour’s scope for action; a shocking unpreparedness for office that means it has been defined by its early mistakes; strategic confusion over whether to appeal to its left base or those it is losing to Reform UK; and a leader with leaden political instincts.
Already the prime minister looks like a prisoner in Downing Street, incarcerated by his own MPs and the polls, fearfully eyeing every rival, having chained himself to the desk from which he incrementally splits the difference between competing imperatives. Taxes are raised to hold down price rises. Hence a government supposedly fixated on growth throws more costs and regulation at business. Whines about Whitehall inertia merely convey his own weakness — there is a reason men tend not to list impotence on their Tinder profiles. Small wonder voters are drawn in by the energy of populist parties.
Many alternatives would be worse. The party’s soul instincts veer further leftward but all would inherit the same economic realities. (In the event of a tussle, I’d still bet on the bond markets.) But what MPs want is someone who can, in an era of uncertainty, inject a political argument, direction and urgency, the absence of which explains the smell of death already descending on the government. And while this is framed as a Labour issue, it is, more importantly, about a country that is denied the reforming government it needs.
Before the election, Starmer ruthlessly culled candidates to ensure an obedient party, but this autocratic management style has alienated MPs while his mistakes have emboldened them to defy him. The consequence is a government so timid, so scared of its own MPs that, with more than three years left in office, it is pushing back the start of difficult measures until after the next election.
Legislation will pass but MPs are assured that reform of special needs education will not really kick in till 2029. Shabana Mahmood, the decisive home secretary, this week unveiled sweeping police reforms. Almost none of it will happen in this parliament. These are complex matters but year two is when you are meant to gather pace. Adult social care is subject to a review whose final phase is not due till 2028. Defence spending will not reach 3.5 per cent of GDP till 2035. This is “the fierce urgency of now”, Starmer style.
And then there is the steady flow of tactical retreats, from deciding that mandatory digital IDs to tackle illegal migrants will be made voluntary and is actually about public service reform; to the latest Budget subsidy for pubs. Some U-turns are prudent but too many indicate mistakes and political weakness.
Ministers still complain it remains hard to get Downing Street to focus on any long-term policymaking. “If it’s not in the grid for this week or next, good luck,” says one. Others highlight the last-minute retreat on raising income tax. There are ministers with the temperament to think bigger and move faster: Mahmood, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband, who to be fair, is almost alone showing the pace and purpose to force through his clean energy agenda. Yet even they feel constrained.
MPs know the dangers for the country and the party of unseating Starmer and yet many fear the sense of drift is handing the UK to Nigel Farage. Hence the appeal of anything approaching a vision of renewal. It is this, as much as any factional dispute, that is fuelling calls for change. Burnham appears to offer energy, as does Streeting whose preparations for a contest are Westminster’s worst-kept secret.
This also partly explains MPs’ renewed enthusiasm for breaching the manifesto red lines on rejoining EU institutions, certain to be at the heart of any leadership contest. Donald Trump has given Labour an excuse to revisit its European strategy and doing so offers a rallying cry to woo back lost left voters.
Allies argue Starmer just needs time. Interest rates and inflation will be falling by the middle of the year, they say. The NHS is improving. By blocking the Manchester mayor and denying the soft left its best candidate, Starmer may find some breathing space. It is probably too late to avert calamity in May’s Scottish, Welsh and local elections but they hope he can show enough pace and purpose to convince MPs that voters will ultimately see the path to recovery.
In other words, an innately cautious, untrusted premier must, at the age of 63, suddenly become bold and instinctive. Blocking Burnham has brought a brief reprieve from a challenge, but only a slice of luck or a change in nature will spare Starmer and the country from his appointment with that reckoning.