Week-in-Review: How Keir Starmer governs – Politics.co.uk

Starmer, unshackled from the obscurity of opposition, is all of a sudden significant. It’s a honeymoon equation familiar to any PM transferred from the opposition benches: high office implies importance, which confers coverage, commendation and — generally — acclaim. 

It’s a virtuous circle that, for all manner of reasons, never properly gripped Starmer’s predecessor. Upon seizing office in October 2022, Rishi Sunak’s net approval rating stood at -9, elevated some distance above his party. But slowly, then suddenly, Sunak’s fortunes spiralled. 

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Thinking back to Sunak, it’s clear that the ex-PM didn’t merely misunderstand politics, but the nature and meaning of his power. Of course, so little did Sunak appreciate the trappings of his office that he left a historically momentous event — at the most politically sensitive juncture — to conduct some minor sit-down interview. Sunak, simply, couldn’t even understand duty in terms of the political advantage it can confer: the British public want to see their prime minister appearing statesmanlike on the international stage, ergo, a prime minister should want to appear statesmanlike on the international stage. With his D-Day debacle, Sunak exposed the inevitable weakness of a party — and perhaps an individual — unconsciously convinced of their right to rule. They don’t understand the meaning of that rule to others. 

As with Sunak in October 2022 then, the British public is willing their new prime minister to succeed. And having experienced the relative irrelevance of opposition politics, Starmer well-recognises what he stands to gain from his surrounding office, and lose without it. Next week, Labour will pen its first Speech from the Throne (King’s Speech) since 2010 — don’t expect space to be squandered with a bill, say, proscribing pedicabs. Before then, Starmer will feature at the UEFA Euro 2024 final in Berlin; in triumph or defeat, the sight of our new PM in the stands will further enamour Starmer to the (English) public. ’round the flag, we will rally. 

Ultimately, the prime minister’s plan for government at this stage is to be present, active and willing — exploring his power in a way Sunak never did. And crucially, he will do so without contending with the caricature and contortion that characterised the Conservative Party’s election attacks. Rishi Sunak’s party is too busy recriminating and blame-assigning, to meaningfully respond to Starmer’s wholesale reconstitution of our political ecosystem. 

And that is what’s at stake over the coming weeks and months. For fourteen years, it was the Conservative Party and its ascendant faction that contoured our political discourse and realities. In the end, the real power of any majority — let alone one the size of Labour’s — is that the victorious party sets the political parameters. Today therefore, the dust settled around the Conservative Party’s electoral crater, the primary fact of our politics is this: Keir Starmer is in charge. Opponents vanquished, the new PM can define his governance entirely on his own terms, without temperance or limitation.

Viewed in full then, the most surprising aspect of Starmer’s first week in office has been how revealing it’s been of his ambitions and governing style. And a pertinent case in point can be found in the new prime minister’s utilisation of his foremost power: that of patronage. 

Ultimately, there’s no better way to gauge the steer of a new administration than by inspecting those individuals appointed to it. Boris Johnson, for instance, viewed his patronage powers through the prism of his own political self-advancement, as he worked to shore up his position in the Conservative Party with loyalist picks. Likewise, Liz Truss’ ministerial ranks were stuffed with sycophants, whose qualifications began and ended with their ideological conviction. Rishi Sunak’s appointments, meanwhile, were dictated by his dire party-management imperatives: fearful of irking any putative rebels, his factions were flattered and antagonists appeased. Sunak’s “government of all the talents” reflected the Conservative Party’s concerns, not the country’s. Eventually, David Cameron was ennobled and shunted into the Foreign Office: but his appointment in November 2023 hardly spoke to a prime minister at ease with their power. 

Unlike his immediate three predecessors therefore, Starmer needs neither to will his power into existence nor apportion jobs among the possibly spiteful. His recent appointments, therefore, tell a pretty complete story about the government he intends to lead. 

Ostensibly, Starmer’s cabinet choices were announced across Saturday and Sunday last week, but the political heavy-lifting was conducted, in actual fact, in September 2023 — the time of his last reshuffle in opposition. As such, the prime minister’s cabinet picks have largely assumed the posts they shadowed in the last parliament. It’s a fact that denotes some subtle significance.

The last Conservative government’s ministerial carousel, which infamously cycled through six education secretaries in a single year, meant a post-holder was often new to the demands of their brief. Given that power has shifted within the Conservative Party in recent times — rather than between it and an opponent — it’s a fact easily forgotten: but shadowing a brief builds knowledge about a department’s policies and the challenges it faces. The level of continuity from Starmer’s shadow cabinet reflects a conscious renouncement of the churn of recent times, stymying as it has proved of effective governance.

That said, the political power of a PM’s patronage is not borne solely of the ability to appoint a strong top team: rather, their appointments also enable a new No 10 occupant to establish a narrative for their nascent regime. In this regard, Starmer’s picks — reflecting experience and expertise — were intended to serve as an immediate, emphatic signal of a rebooted Britain. This was at its most telling with the PM’s more imaginative appointments, including human rights barrister Richard Hermer as attorney general, former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance (of Covid press conference fame) as science minister and Prison Reform Trust chair James Timpson as justice minister. 

The appointment of Timpson, a businessman who has long made prisoner rehabilitation part of his company’s mission, stands out as especially significant. 

In an interview with Channel 4 in February, Timpson decried Britain’s obsession with incarceration and argued that only a third of the 85,000 people in prison in England and Wales “should definitely be there”. His appointment to the Ministry of Justice therefore, reflects a boldness Starmer consciously shied away from in opposition. No longer fearing a counter-assault on Labour’s purportedly lax approach to crime and punishment, it’s an instance of Starmer seeking to reset the political frame.

In fact, across his first week in office, Starmer has embraced highly charged debates — ones that his predecessor administrations proved too weak to confront. Already, the new PM has moved to repeal the de facto ban on onshore wind licences, doing so in full recognition of the anger this would inspire among some local naysayers and their MP delegates. 

In a speech on Monday, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called the effective ban “absurd”, insisting decisions should be taken nationally, not locally. This, accompanied by the announcement Labour will reinstate housing targets and look at planning reform in the coming weeks, indicates just how serious Labour is about using its mandate to spur economic growth. 

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Rwanda deportation plan — the epitome of the “performative” governance Starmer so maligns — has been scrapped. On top of this, the prime minister’s refusal to commit to a deadline on increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent underlines that Labour’s fiscal rules are for government, not just for opposition. 

Interestingly, Starmer has not yet moved to reconfigure Whitehall, choosing instead to operate within the departmental framework established by Rishi Sunak in his February 2023 reshuffle. As such, the major change is symbolic: the phrase “levelling up” has been dropped from the title of the ministry known now as the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government. As with the Rwanda plan, Starmer abhors any alleged governmental gimmick.

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Starmer’s priorities are reflected, moreover, in those he chose to meet this week. Alongside the requisite calls with international leaders, the prime minister led a roundtable discussion with the UK’s metro mayors on Tuesday, recommitting to the devolution and dispersion of governmental power. Starmer met, too, with Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministerial interests — in his first 24 hours as PM no less — “to discuss how we deliver in government”. Over the coming weeks, Starmer plans to empower Sir Laurie, the government’s standards watchdog, to initiate his own investigations — rather than operating solely at the behest of No 10.

There is, of course, a raw political quality to this fledgling Starmer government and its inaugural actions. Indeed, in styling his government as active and reforming, the prime minister plans to remind voters of the foundering inertia that characterised the latest phase of Conservative governance. 

Simply put, Starmer wants his predecessors to own their record and legacy over the past fourteen years. It’s a task made easier by the Conservative Party’s present disarray. With no individual willing and/or able to provide the counter-argument — likely for many months if a leadership election is long-delayed — Starmer plans to shape popular memory of the last government’s woes. 

Tellingly, in her speech on Monday, Reeves described the “legacy of 14 years of chaos and economic irresponsibility”. Starmer, in a newly-published article for the Guardian newspaper, writes of the “mountain of mess [left] for this government to clean up”. And addressing the nation on Friday, justice secretary Shabana Mahmood rubbished the last government as a roguish regime that “left the country threatened with a total breakdown of law and order”. 

Outlining plans to release thousands of prisoners to ease overcrowding, Mahmood added: “Those responsible – Sunak and his gang in No 10 – should go down in history as the guilty men. The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country. It was the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known.”

After four years in opposition, therefore — a tedious prelude — Starmer’s reward is the worthy work of government. For sure, we can’t be certain how a Starmer government will evolve as it is buffeted by events and likely, even inevitably, scandal. But in this honeymoon period, our new PM has a free pass to manage expectations and set his terms. 

In this regard, Starmer’s condemnation of Sunak’s earth-salting is not merely politically viable — but wholly necessary in forging popular consent for the actions he plans to take over the coming months and years.

Ultimately, it will be the nature of these decisions — together with time and events — that tell whether Starmer is remembered for spurring Britain’s “national renewal”. But at this early stage, the prime minister’s strong start suggests his honeymoon will be rather longer than some doomsters contend.

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest election news and analysis.