British Prime Minister Keir Starmer turned 100 on Saturday, with little cause for celebration.
Starmer’s centre-left Labor Party was elected in a landslide on July 4, returning to power after 14 years. But after weeks of infighting, bribery and stories of fiscal obscurity, polls show Starmer’s personal approval rating has plummeted, leaving Labor little more popular than a Conservative Party rejected by voters after years of infighting and scandal.
“You couldn’t imagine a worse start,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “First impressions count, and it will be difficult to change them.”
Starmer won the election by promising to reverse years of turmoil and scandal under Conservative governments, grow Britain’s sluggish economy and restore crumbling public services such as the state-funded National Health Service.
His government says it’s off to a strong start: it has ended long-running strikes by doctors and railway workers, created a publicly owned green energy company, scrapped a controversial Conservative plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda and introduced strengthening bills. workers’ and tenants’ rights.
Starmer has been to Washington, the United Nations and European capitals to show that “Britain is back” after inward-looking wrangling over Brexit. But the UK, like its allies, has struggled to have much influence in the grinding conflict in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.
The new government has also faced crises at home, including days of far-right anti-immigrant violence in towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland over the summer. Starmer condemned the riots as “senseless” and vowed to jail those responsible. So far, more than 800 people have appeared in court and almost 400 have gone to prison.
Starmer’s most intractable problem is Britain’s sluggish economy, hampered by rising public debt and low growth of 0.2% in August, according to official data.
Starmer warned that things will be “tough in the short term” before they get better. He says public spending will be constrained by a £22 billion ($29 billion) “black hole” in public finances left by the Conservatives.
One of the government’s first actions was to withdraw a payment intended to help millions of retirees heat their homes this winter. It was meant to signal a determination to take tough economic decisions, but it created a strong backlash among Labor and sections of the public.
He also spoke awkwardly of the news that Starmer had accepted thousands of pounds (dollars) worth of clothes and designer glasses. Starmer insisted the gifts were within the rules, but after negative headlines he agreed to return £6,000 (almost $8,000) worth of gifts and hospitality, including tickets to see Taylor Swift.
Government officials and advisers have swapped blame for the troubled start, with Downing Street chief of staff Sue Gray pointing to tensions with Labor campaign strategist Morgan McSweeney.
Amid intense media scrutiny – which revealed that Gray had won more than the Prime Minister – he resigned on Sunday, saying he was “in danger of becoming a distraction”. He will replace McSweeney as Starmer’s chief of staff.
Anand Menon, director of the UK-based policy think tank Changing Europe, wrote on his website that the government had made “inevitable mistakes” which allowed a “perception of incompetence and dysfunction” to take over.
The government’s focus is now on October 30, when Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will set her first budget. The government relies on a mix of public and private investment to fuel economic growth, but it needs billions to do the job. Reeves has ruled out raising income tax, sales tax or corporate tax, but also says there will be no “return to austerity” – a difficult circle to square. He is believed to be considering raising taxes on wealth, such as capital gains or wealth tax.
The government hopes that it can make painful decisions early and then turn things around by showing that the economy is growing and improving living standards. And he has time: there is not necessarily another election until 2029.
Starmer Downing St. He had been working since 10 on his 100th day in office, and insisted he would not be “put out of the way”.
“You get these days and weeks where things are messy, you can’t turn it around,” he told the BBC. “That’s the nature of government.
“It’s been much harder than what I’ve done before, but much better.”
Bale said that the government can restore trust with voters if it shows that “not only has it had a pretty serious legacy, but it has a plan to improve the country”.
“What has been somewhat lacking is vision,” he said. “I don’t think people have that much of a sense of what Keir Starmer is, or indeed Labour. And that’s something they need to sort out very quickly.
