how Keir Starmer wasted his first months in power

Friends of Sir Keir Starmer say the prime minister needs a holiday. After a year of election victories followed by a sharp drop in support – with no respite in between – the high command of the UK Labor party appears exhausted.

“He needs a break, they all need a break,” said a close friend. “These are people who haven’t had a holiday for a year. They crawled to the finish line.” The big question faced Star maker is whether he can return refreshed from his New Year’s holiday overseas and restore his ailing system.

The Financial Times spoke to ministers, aides, business leaders and Labor MPs – many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity – to piece together what went down for Starmer after his landslide election victory on July 4 and whether the prime minister can change things.

His ambition to lead a “government of service” has been marred by an almost constant series of setbacks or failures: the summer riots, the clothing donations scandal, Sue Gray’s departure, the fall of out of the Budget.

“He is very upset with the way the first few months have gone,” said one Downing Street insider. “Not only a waste of time but also a waste of political economy.”

Advertise, Starmer sneers. Asked by the House of Commons liaison committee last week if he would have done anything differently, the Prime Minister said: “No.” He brought back structural reforms, pensions and socialization among the achievements of his government.

However, no prime minister in recent times has seen such a dangerous fall in public support in such a short period of time. Some Labor MPs have already started discussing who could replace Starmer and lead Labor into the next election.

There is now widespread agreement in Number 10 and the Treasury that the £1.5bn cut in winter fuel payments for 10mn pensioners at the end of July was a huge political mistake, which sowed the seeds for many of the government’s problems later.

“We should have asked more questions,” agreed a senior official who had thought about the decision, speaking of the belief that councilor Rachel Reeves was ready to take it seriously. the concept of cost containment which was promoted by the Department of Finance.

The decision sparked speculation about the new Starmer government that Work it would have been a far cry from the Conservatives, who had just been ousted after 14 years in power. Starmer’s receipt of £32,000 in free suits and glasses was included in the report.

John McTernan, a former Labor Downing Street aide, said: “Cutting winter fuel payments was a big mistake because it was done without meaning, with a long gap of four months between the election and the Budget .It had a great influence on the correction of this government.”

Reeves hailed the winter petrol price cut as evidence of the need to take “tough decisions” to deal with what he said was “the worst economic legacy of any government since the war”. the world’s second”.

High numbers of Labor believe the dovish message was exaggerated, contributing to a loss of business confidence. Another cabinet minister said: “We were very disappointed. We may have done the right thing but we don’t have a story to explain why we do these things.”

The ministers believed that the party was also not ready for the government. “The access talks before the elections did not start early,” said another minister, referring to the talks between opposition politicians and civil servants to prepare the government plan.

Gray, who was once Starmer’s chief of staff, has been widely blamed in Starmer’s ranks for not being prepared, not just in terms of strategy but also in terms of personnel. “The whole process of appointing ministers has been a mess,” said another minister.

Gray was eventually forced out of office by Starmer in October, shortly after the prime minister returned from a Labor conference in Liverpool that felt more like an uprising than a victory party.

“After the meeting, Keir was determined to change things,” said one Labor official. “People were just shocked. There was a threat to be in power, then there were riots, then there was a party conference. It wasn’t all Sue’s fault.”

Then came the Reeves Budget on 30 October, an event which caused a huge row with businessmen who had been upset with Labor before the election. Economic depression and depressed business confidence followed.

The feeling of betrayal caused by Reeves’ £25bn increase in national insurance for employers was huge, but it also had a negative impact on the economy. Research that measures production reliability and the hiring plans fell through with anger; the economy collapsed.

One FTSE 100 executive said: “He’s not up to the job yet. “The collapse of confidence in the business world has been a huge disaster. I think it’s over, but it happened. ”

The effect of all these obstacles was to weaken morale at the center of the Starmer administration. One person who works closely with Starmer admitted: “There is a bit of a confidence problem.

Attempts to restart in December saw Starmer set out “significant steps” in his government’s focus of power and resources, but he raised further headlines with his claim that some government officials the public was “liberated due to the drastic decline of control”.

“I don’t understand where that comes from,” said one pastor. “I would have been confused.” Starmer was then forced to write to angry civil servants to try to calm the uproar.

Starmer’s supporters believe he can turn things around in 2025. Tom Baldwin, the prime minister’s biographer, said “in every major job he’s done, he’s had an amazing start,” referring to an inauspicious start to his role as Labor leader. as the director of the prosecution.

“He tries different things until he finds something that works,” Baldwin said. “It’s not fancy or inspiring, but it’s probably not only the best way to dig yourself into a hole, but also the best way to run a country.”

Starmer’s top team is now moving on, with veterans from the Tony Blair era brought back into the fold. Jonathan Powell and Liz Lloyd, heroes of Blair’s Downing Street operation, are being brought back to resume their roles in foreign policy and home reform, respectively. Lord Peter Mandelson, a New Labor stalwart, will play a key role as a US representative.

Pat McFadden, a Cabinet Office minister and former Blair editor, and Lord Spencer Livermore, a former adviser to Gordon Brown, meet regularly with Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, to strategize and defuse the conflict. politics. The press team has been strengthened.

Starmer’s allies say he will “roll up his sleeves” and get on with the job, despite any downturn in the economic outlook – or a major setback from US president-elect Donald Trump’s trade policy – could force Reeves to come back later in 2025 for more politics. devastating tax hikes.

There is hope in the Starmer camp that Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, has not become the political threat they first feared. A Downing Street insider said: “He was worried about how things would look in the House of Commons – that he would look like a white man ‘putting down’ on a black woman. well behaved.”

However, Starmer is worried about the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which may pose a threat to Badenoch’s right but Labor policy experts fear it will end up being there. great danger in its celebration again. Another pastor said: “People are very worried about the Reforms.”

Starmer’s team says it will not make the mistake of using the “Pied Piper strategy” adopted by the US Democrats before the 2016 presidential election, when they actively talked to Trump in the hope that he would destroy the Republicans and take them down the populist rabbit hole. .

Trying to talk to Farage in the hope of pulling Badenoch into a more Reform seat could easily be dangerous, according to Labor architects: “If you do that, suddenly you might find yourself wondering ‘what have we created?’,” said another. Another said, “There is no template for a center-left bashing a right-wing celebrity.”

Starmer’s group believes the Prime Minister must roll up her sleeves and prove to voters that a left-wing mainstream government can still deliver. “He’s upset, everyone is upset,” said one Downing Street insider. “We have to show people that we are on their side.”

McTernan said the Labor government reminded him of Eric Morecambe’s joke about playing “all the right notes but not . . . in the right order”, and added: “The fundamentals are right, the negotiations have not been.” be that good, but that’s better than the other way around.”

Should Starmer and Reeves enter 2025 trying to inject some hope into an already depressed, almost lethal political debate? Another labor minister seemed unconvinced: “I’m not sure if Rachel and Keir are serious people.