Why does Keir Starmer, an affable, intelligent professional with a sense of ambition and grit strong enough to carry him through the Labour leadership civil wars to the top, still not connect with the public? There have been nearly as many “(re)introduce Starmer to the public” restarts as there have been U-turns on policy.
Each one makes a stuttering start: the poignant retelling of a genuinely difficult childhood in a family plagued by illness and low income, the claim that this bestows empathy with those struggling at the hardest end of the cost of living crisis, the conference speech flirting with the idea of calling Reform UK‘s plans under Nigel Farage racist and then splitting the difference, to say he only meant the party’s migration policy.
The raw material of Starmer is not bad at all, yet the outcome is dire – a 17 per cent rating for a government is a position from which a recovery to gold power would be miraculous. Not least when even a Conservative Party on 19 per cent has edged ahead and Reform, while losing some steam, is still comfortably ahead in the mid to high 20s. Something is not working.
While Starmer will likely have a good story to tell on falling inflation, he may find that without a growth and general optimism uplift, lowering the rate of inflation does not do the trick of bringing back momentum to his leadership. Also, cost of living woes are fundamentally about the country not earning enough to keep up with the consumption aims of its people in an ageing population – which means that the lack of a coherent growth strategy is still the lost chord of this Government.
The other big gap is Starmer’s personal “comms”, which is to say, how do the various teams, spin doctors and message carriers help the Prime Minister deliver a more convincing message about what he really wants to do with his time behind the glossy black door in No 10?
Naturally, they want to modernise – using social media clips and what is quaintly termed “new media” in government (podcasts, vodcasts, social platforms, influencers and anything that is not text on paper). But when this endeavour is built on a wobbly sub-structure of struggling to convey clearly and consistently what the PM cares about more than anything else, it can end up with no clear theme.
The default mode often runs too close to rewarding those who trot out uncritical lines on the talking point of the day – and taking great umbrage or threatening to disengage as soon as a journalist or commentator pops a thinking hat on and says that something might not be working well, or is at odds with some other bit of the policy machine. The best political communicators from any party, however, are those determined to persuade doubters or make their critics think again. When that element goes astray, because shaky leaderships tend to double down on defensiveness, it spreads a default mode of testiness across ministers too – because culture and mood is determined from the top.
But communication is a conversation, not a diktat, and becoming less open to challenge and too cliquish is never a route to success for those in power. Fanning out content across changing media platforms also relies on having sorted out your message to start with.
These are some of the challenges for David Dinsmore, the new head of overall government communications who comes from a tough journalism background, and Tim Allan, a seasoned communications strategist in No 10.
If there is such an aggrieved and sensitive feeling at the heart of this operation, the Keir brand itself becomes infected by this sense of perpetual gripe. Starmer is a perfectly reasonable human being and much more conversable than the present grudging posture conveys. He is a thoughtful character who responds fine to a bit of mild teasing. When I first interviewed him, I pointed out that he had brought notes for an entire court case and just needed to get on the podcast microphone and talk to his audience, to which he replied humorously, “touché!”, and joked about his note-taking habits when we next met. But the “comms” seem to make him more stilted than he is in the flesh.
In many ways, Starmer is also a faster learner than his critics suggest, but the connection issue is not resolved, because messages and tone keep switching to the point that even his inner teams have had tensions about them. A PM who talks about the danger of an “island of strangers” in a speech about the effects of untrammeled migration one minute, than wrongfoots his own staff by disowning it in an interview with his biographer not long after, is going to sound unsure of his own mind.
Now a new dangerous paradox is opening up between the Keir who wants to be actively involved in a post-war stabilisation force in Ukraine and solving the Greenland conundrum with Donald Trump, while neglecting to resolve a standoff between the Treasury and defence and Army bosses over a massive black hole in spending on the capacity of the Armed Forces. In the end, the PM himself is the connective tissue between a government’s vision and delivery.
I would not worry so much about more images of Keir the blokey football fan (of which one can have too much), or about hearing more on his poignant “back story” at this point. He has acknowledged this week he is in a fight for his survival and his party’s chances of avoiding defeat by Reform. What both an unsettled party and voters will want to know is what really matters to him. A lengthening list of unrelated policies, and projects which wax and wane is not the same as a clear set of aims.
The route to connection is more authenticity, clearer priorities and greater bravery – the missing ingredients in the Starmer stew.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor at Politico and co-host of Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast
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