THE message to the Prime Minister could not have been clearer.
It might be the anniversary of your first year in government but we are going to humiliate you in your own back yard.
The role of Prime Minister seems to be a bit too big for Sir Keir Starmer
AFPStarmer’s leadership was bruised after the recent humiliation over welfare reforms[/caption]
Labour backbenchers handed him his biggest humiliation yet when 49 of them voted against the flagship Welfare Bill after first slicing and dicing it to the point where it was unrecognisable.
The bruising encounter, played out in the House of Commons chamber for hour after hour on Tuesday, left Sir Keir Starmer in no doubt.
He’d lost the argument, he’d lost his authority and he’s now lost the goodwill.
It was all supposed to be so very different. The landslide victory, the happy faces, the cheering on election night.
What a difference a year makes.
Now it’s all scowls, backstabbing, deals made in the back of taxis and a sense that it’s all gone horribly wrong.
Labour is about to commemorate one year in government tomorrow.
But there isn’t anyone in the mood for a party.
Remember when they said everything was fully costed. Remember when they said they were ready for government.
Remember when they said it would be a government of service. Country first, party second?
Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, everyone does.
Downright lies
What we’ve had in reality is, in the words of a Talk Special, A Year Of Chaos.
Starmer has been waking up each morning this week with a feeling of dread as it slowly dawns on him that things haven’t been going very well.
Starmer has had ‘the worst start for any newly elected prime minister, Labour or Conservative’
Sir John Curtice
In fact, as the first anniversary of his Government looms large, it seems for all the world that the biggest job in Britain is simply too big for him.
This week the respected polling guru Sir John Curtice summed it up when he said Starmer has had “the worst start for any newly elected prime minister, Labour or Conservative”.
He added that one of the reasons Starmer’s approval ratings are so bad — minus 54 points — is that voters simply still don’t know what he stands for.
After a year in government Tony Blair’s approval rating was +34 and even David Cameron was only -3.
“It’s not as if this was a Government that was elected with any enthusiasm in July last year,” Sir John told me this week.
When Wes Streeting was wheeled out to defend the Prime Minister’s record a few days ago he was at pains to point out that the PM was a decent man who “has the courage and humility” to admit he was not perfect.
He stopped short of admitting to Labour mistakes.
Shutterstock EditorialDefending his struggling leader, Wes Streeting pointed out that the PM was a decent man who ‘has the courage and humility’ to admit that he was not perfect[/caption]
Starmer himself gave a series of personal interviews at the weekend in which he appeared to try to paint himself as a man who had regrets about some of the things that have gone wrong in the past 12 months.
But even that backfired as he confessed to making mistakes because he was distracted.
He didn’t realise the left-wing backbenchers in his own party were plotting a rebellion on the Welfare Bill because he was too busy being an international statesman at the G7 and Nato summits.
He didn’t realise how his “strangers in their own land” speech would be interpreted as a significant policy shift on immigration — especially as it appeared to echo the words of Labour bogeyman Enoch Powell.
He was, apparently, distracted by the firebomb attack on his private home.
In truth, though, the trouble for the PM didn’t just start in May.
His behaviour in the House of Commons, when he deigns to turn up, is viewed as condescending and rude.
Especially to women MPs.
His repeated claims that he is “fixing the foundations” of the economy and creating thousands of jobs are being exposed as downright lies by ever-increasing statistics which confirm precisely the opposite is true.
The rot set in early in Starmer’s reign when it became clear that his claim he would deliver a government of service was blown apart by revelations that both he and his wife — and several other key Labour figures — had been the recipients of clothes, glasses, holidays and countless other gifts from millionaire donor Lord Alli and others.
In trying to portray himself as a human being who cares about ordinary working people, Starmer has attempted to show he’s just the son of a toolmaker who got lucky.
He likes football, he loves his family.
Who can forget his insistence that he would always stop working at 6pm on a Friday night so that he could cook for his children?
But the truth seems to be very different.
Sir John Curtice says the Prime Minister needs to paint a picture of the country he wants to create — but many ordinary people in Britain fear the country is already lost and they want it back
Mike Graham
We’ve seen the angry Starmer vowing to punish far-right thuggery last summer after the Southport riots.
We’ve seen the craven Starmer in the Oval Office delivering the King’s letter to US President Donald Trump.
And we’ve witnessed the crestfallen Starmer in the Commons last week vowing to listen to his critics.
Sir John Curtice says the Prime Minister needs to paint a picture of the country he wants to create — but many ordinary people in Britain fear the country is already lost and they want it back.
GettyMayor of Manchester Andy Burnham could be eyeing up Downing Street as his next residence[/caption]
The question is, which Keir Starmer are we supposed to believe in?
The one who doesn’t know what a woman is until he’s told by the Supreme Court?
The one who doesn’t believe we need a rape-gang inquiry until a baroness corrects him?
Closer to cliff edge
The one who said Sue Gray was the brains behind their first 100 days of government?
The one who wanted a fight with backbenchers over the Welfare Bill?
Or the one who caved in.
Starmer has often been accused of being a man who believes in nothing
Mike Graham
This week saw Clarks Shoes making 1,200 people redundant.
That was on top of Nissan losing a couple of hundred jobs in Sunderland.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves this week is said to be planning to do away with the £20,000 tax-free cash ISA allowance.
As this Government hurtles closer to the cliff edge they’re looking more and more like a contestant at the end of the Crystal Maze, desperate to grab at anything that will stop them being ejected.
And still the PM acts as if everything is fine.
Starmer has often been accused of being a man who believes in nothing.
He’s often been said to be a man of many faces, but no one in the country likes any of them.
As Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham eye up Downing Street as their next residence, Starmer might do well to look over his shoulder every now and then.
There’s a queue forming.
Mike Graham presents Morning Glory on Talk every weekday from 6am-10am.
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