The pathetic demise of Keir Starmer |
Keir Starmer may still be British prime minister when this article is published, but it is certain that he will not lead the Labour Party at the next general election, due to be held in June 2029.
Starmer became prime minister after steering Labour to a decisive election victory in July 2024. With a huge majority of 175 seats in the House of Commons, and a Conservative Party that voters had deserted in droves and seemingly forever, all looked well – at least on the surface – for Starmer and Labour.
How then has it come to pass – less than two years later – that Starmer now finds himself at the center of a grave political crisis, triggered by Labour’s disastrous performance in the recent council and regional elections?
Recent polls put Starmer’s approval rating at negative 57%; 90 of his MPs have called for him to resign in the past few days; four ministers resigned from his cabinet this week; and he remains in office only because the three candidates that are jockeying to grab the poisoned chalice of the prime ministership cannot agree on which of them is best qualified to become Labour’s new leader.
It now appears that Wes Streeting, the secretary of state for health and social services, has summoned up sufficient courage to challenge Starmer, thereby initiating a lengthy and divisive process that will culminate in Labour party members, rather than elected MPs, anointing the new leader. Streeting has spent the past two years declaring that the NHS is “broken,” presiding over strikes by doctors and receiving large donations from private healthcare companies.
Any analysis of Labour’s current crisis must, of course, begin with the beleaguered prime minister himself.
Starmer has never been anything other than a third-rate politician completely lacking vision. Unlike Tony Blair, who he somewhat woodenly resembles and tries to ape, Starmer lacks both charisma and political judgement. And unlike Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer is utterly void of principle.
Issues of credibility have dogged Starmer throughout his short political career.
Starmer started out as a Corbyn acolyte, who then destroyed his master’s political career – by levelling false allegations of anti-Semitism at him – in order to advance his own. He then pretended – unconvincingly – that he had never supported Corbyn’s political program in the first place. It must be conceded that this pose was at least superficially plausible, but only because it was difficult to believe that Starmer had ever believed strongly in anything at all.
Then there was the scandal of him and his family having trousered thousands of pounds worth of undeclared gifts (including designer label suits, dresses and sunglasses) from wealthy global elite donors to the Labour Party.
Nor should we forget Starmer’s famous “Ten Pledges”........