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Parliamentary rebellions, MPs relieved of the party whip, accusations of cronyism, petty scandals, a struggle to tell a compelling narrative, ministers touring media studios with contradictory and sometimes bizarre messages, vituperative internal briefings, dismal polling and far too many unforced errors.
It’s a litany of political woes that commentators have employed to describe both the government disassembled by the election on 4th July and the one constructed in its wake. Indeed, for all the strident Conservative denunciations of recent days, to contend there is something Sunak-esque about this nascent Labour government is as damning a criticism as one could possibly level.
But it isn’t a fair one — yet.
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The intensity, breadth and persistence of Sunak’s rolling malaises represent troughs that Keir Starmer’s administration has not so far descended to. The Conservative Party had 13 years before Sunak’s ascension to dispel the “growing pains” that arise with governing. Starmer, after all, possesses a political currency that his hurried predecessor, at worst, never had and, at best, blithely dispensed: time.
This fact, after a particularly bruising week, should sustain some Labour optimism.
But it is no secret that the Labour Party’s mood has worsened in recent days — and nor is there any disguising why. What is, after all, most striking about Starmer’s early woes is just how well-developed they are: grudges forged in opposition are now playing out across government. Media stories depict a regime riven with dysfunction and struggling to seize the moment.
This week, BBC News reported that Sue Gray — the prime minister’s ever-conspicuous chief of staff — has been given a salary in government of £170,000. The story led with the revelation that this is £3,000 more than her boss, the most powerful politician in the land.
After much initial shock, the secondary reactions to the scoop focussed on why Gray — Starmer’s political minesweeper — did not spot the potential problem posed by her salary. Gray will be aware of her reputation, accrued rightly or wrongly in recent years, as a result of her starring role in “Partygate” and controversial flight from officialdom. For these reasons, Gray is both a Conservative bogeywoman and one of few (if any) Starmer advisers who boasts name recognition beyond Westminster. (This latter observation will have been boosted by the BBC’s decision to promulgate its scoop via a news app push notification).
Gray, therefore, is extremely exposed to revelations like this: the furore was foreseeable and avoidable. Why, then, wasn’t the furore foreseen and avoided by the very person whose job it is to foresee and avoid furores?
This said, the BBC report hasn’t proved so incendiary because of what it says about Gray’s political nous — or possible lack thereof. But rather for how it portrays the political culture in Labour’s Downing Street operation.
The briefings at Gray’s expense, designed to lend credence to her political caricature, reflect genuine resentment in No 10 — resentment about Gray’s pay and influence, on the part of those who feel underpaid and denied influence. (Ironically, the briefings suggest Starmer’s assiduous gatekeeper is performing this aspect of her job rather well).
Still, the anonymous rants — borne of dispossession, spite or genuine righteousness — were coruscating. “It was suggested that [Gray] might want to go for a few thousand pounds less than the prime minister to avoid this very story”, one source told BBC News acidly. “She declined.”
“If you ever see any evidence of our preparations for government, please let me know”, another adviser scathed.
But the magnum opus of Labour’s acerbic anti-Gray leaks was pinged to The Times’ Gabriel Pogrund: “Sue Gray is the only pensioner better off under Labour”, it read.
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But I thought Starmer was good at politics?
Despite the record of recent administrations, it is worth underlining that stories of dysfunction in Downing Street are not inevitable. Nor, when they do occur, will they always seep into the public realm.
When a government is governing well, the fraught and/or adversarial relationships of faceless advisers will typically remain shrouded in secrecy. Certainly, in a standard “honeymoon” period, it’s unlikely resentful advisers would get much of a hearing from journalists; their dispossessed wails just wouldn’t fit the prevailing narrative.
Briefing of this intensity, therefore, reflects not just anger within No 10 — but a broader recognition that Labour is struggling.
That isn’t news, of course. The government’s decision to cut winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners — its first big consequential move — has exacerbated tensions at Westminster and gone down disastrously beyond. Meanwhile, the rolling stories of Labour “freebies” — from frocks and glasses to exclusive corporate boxes — have skirted the edges of Starmer’s pledge to lead a “government of service”. (Again, that Labour wasn’t hyper-attuned to even the slightest sense of a “freebies” controversy suggests processes failed in No 10).
What, then, has gone so wrong for Labour since it entered government?
Well, your memory may have been wiped by Labour’s sweeping landslide, but Starmer erred in opposition too. For instance, the party leadership seemed remarkably shaken by the political drama surrounding its commitment to invest £28 billion a year into clean energy. Cornered by Conservative attacks and his own “iron” fiscal discipline, Starmer finally confirmed the fate of the arbitrary £28 billion in February — but only after months of contradictory messaging and painstaking speculation.
Labour later investigated the incessant hum of anonymous media briefings about its flagship energy policy. How do we know? Because the existence of a leak inquiry was itself briefed out — including the detail that Gray left suspects “in tears” due to her alleged heavy-handedness. (Starmer’s chief of staff had, by this point, already caught some blame for the policy’s drawn-out demise).
Then, a week later, Labour’s unnecessary delay in axing disgraced Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali amounted to a genuine debacle. And during the election campaign, the row over the future of Diane Abbott — with the trailblazing MP forced to walk Labour’s deselection plank only to be beckoned back — crowded out Starmer’s messaging for days.
Even in opposition, therefore, Labour had a tendency to malfunction. But the leadership’s unforced errors and undignified delays from 2020-2024 never accumulated into a narrative critical mass. Labour has the mesmerising mess on the other side of the commons aisle to thank for that.
(Now, this isn’t to say Starmer performed poorly in opposition. On the contrary: he defenestrated Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, one-by-one, across the despatch box and, for the most part, pursued his political strategy with ruthless intent. The aforementioned missteps were so marked, for the most part, because they happened rarely.)
History will remember Keir Starmer’s role in the Conservative Party’s downfall
Ultimately, there will be many theories as to why Labour’s wheels are rolling rather less smoothly in government. But the relentless media speculation should be of little concern to the man at the centre of it.
Keir Starmer, as the one individual with the power to quieten ill-advised briefing and kill uncomfortable news stories, must decide his government’s direction of travel and hurry along it. As such, ministers’ decision not to accept any more free clothes from donors after recent rows, reported on Friday evening, is strategically sound (if belated). The PM must now go further in dispelling Downing Street’s rotten culture and its structural roots.
If he doesn’t, Starmer will learn to fear what his administration could become.
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Starmer is stalked by Sunak’s failure
The government helmed by Starmer’s predecessor is replete with case studies of how political missteps can engender public disquiet, anger and — ultimately — crushing electoral comeuppance. In hindsight, Rishi Sunak’s worst enemy was the Conservative “brand”, which slowly enveloped every action (and inaction) of his administration until it poisoned his appeal too.
Right now, Starmer and Labour do not possess an inherently debilitating “brand” that media reports can latch onto and bolster. This is the good news: the fact that Labour carries little to no political baggage lessens the chance of any alleged irreverence living long in the public consciousness.
But Starmer’s penchant for accepting “freebies” — coupled with his decision on winter fuel payments — has the potential to become a brand-forming moment. The prime minister, remember, promised to lead a government of incontrovertible, unimpeachable integrity. But so did Sunak.
If this view of Labour as hypocritical and “no better than the other lot” catches on, Starmer’s window for action would narrow drastically — and fast. And therein lies the big risk for the government: the public could stop listening to ministers before Labour really starts governing.
The electorate knows what a self-serving administration looks like. Starmer does too — he successfully felled one in July. Now Labour must go above and beyond to govern in conscious renouncement of it. Labour, as the Democrats’ travails in the US suggest, will garner no credit for its successes if disaffection still reigns at the next election.
It was pretty timely then, that the prominent pro-Starmer think tank, Labour Together, published a report this week outlining what the party must do to win in 2029.
The report reads: “In the past, winning 411 seats was the kind of victory from which a government might confidently expect 10 years in power. This Labour government has been cautiously hired, on a trial basis, liable to prompt dismissal if it deviates even slightly from its focus on voters’ priorities”.
It’s time for Starmer to take this advice to heart.
What Starmer must do
At this juncture, the government’s “painful” budget on 30th October means any political reset inaugurated at Labour conference will, at best, be rhetorical. As such, a mood recalibration may be the most Starmer can do next week — but he must try nonetheless.
More broadly, stories about No 10 dysfunction and petty rows about “freebies” will not go away until Starmer takes some tough political decisions. The prime minister, simply put, must now rediscover the ruthlessness that powered him through opposition. That might just right his juddering premiership.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.
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