Sir Keir Starmer drained his beer and stood up to leave the Proud Mary restaurant in Johannesburg on Friday night. He had spent 30 minutes in a charm offensive with the travelling press pack tailing him to the G20 summit in South Africa.
Out for a fire-cooked steak dinner, three middle-aged South African ladies spotted Starmer and made haste to pose for a photo with him. One of them, Nomsa Lehlehla, blushed as she told The i Paper after the encounter: “I’m flustered like a schoolgirl. I can’t believe a British Prime Minister is here.”
If only voters back home felt the same. Starmer’s three-day diplomatic binge over the weekend was a rebuff to domestic criticism that “never here Keir” was abroad again ahead of another difficult week at home, with a tax-hiking Budget on Wednesday.
In a deliberate snub to the South African hosts and the fundamental idea of international institutions, Donald Trump failed to show, even though the US was due to take over chairing the G20 on Sunday.
But over the weekend Starmer shrugged off the argument that traditional alliances are failing without the input of the US, arguing Britain needs to be both front and centre of world affairs.
He insists investment and therefore jobs can be driven by glad-handing foreign leaders, and was particularly pleased with a £4bn investment in the UK announced by Indonesia after a sign-off meeting on the deal on Saturday morning.
In fact, Starmer appeared relaxed for a leader who was coming to the end of a fortnight of internal party chaos, alongside polling showing he’s the most unpopular prime minister in history. According to Ipsos just 13 per cent of voters say they are satisfied with his performance and 79 per cent unsatisfied.
A cackhanded Downing Street briefing against Wes Streeting last week allowed the health secretary to demonstrate his considerable talent for communicating and declare his loyalty to Starmer. But it also confirmed what The i Paper first reported: that Starmer’s internal critics were openly plotting against him.
Starmer seemed remarkably unaffected, brushing off multiple questions about the row with the same formula of words, that every minute talking about a coup is “a minute wasted” dealing with the public’s priorities.
Ironically, given all the recent chatter about traitors and faithfuls, Downing Street sources suggested Starmer rather enjoyed watching The Celebrity Traitors with his family in his Downing Street flat, especially Jonathan Ross’s iconic exit.
After being voted out Ross, nicknamed a “Big Dog” by fellow players, concluded with an arch farewell. “I am now, and I have been all through the game completely faithful…” he said, before concluding: “…to the traitors.”
Starmer’s relaxed demeanour partly comes from his ability to “not take things personally,” as one of his ministers put it recently.
But there is an incumbency advantage that comes with simply being Prime Minister that makes Starmer more secure than some of the chatter about a coup would suggest. Any challenger would have to find 80 MPs to back them and then convince the party’s base; no mean feat as traditional Labour members peel off to the Greens.
Despite all the speculation, Starmer is currently in a stronger position than even his predecessor as Labour prime minister, Tony Blair. There is no modern equivalent to the lion-like Gordon Brown basking behind a tree, swiping an occasional claw at potential rivals if they got too close to a challenge to his dominance as successor.
“You’ll remember when I took over the Labour Party, many people said you’ll never be able to change the Labour Party,” a determined Starmer told reporters travelling with him. “Then the next thing they said when we changed the Labour Party… They said after the 2019 election result, you’ll never be able to win the next election. And we did.”
Labour MPs who only a week ago had been predicting the early demise of Starmer are now changing their tune, having had a chance to think about the implications of a leadership challenge.
“I think most people are really clear they don’t want to spend the next six months talking about leadership,” one Labour MP told The i Paper. “But I think there’s still an understanding that Keir will not take us into the next election.
“We’d much rather not have a leadership election, but until there’s somebody that everybody in the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] can rally around as a smooth transition of power, I don’t think it’s really going to happen. If there was an obvious person, it would have happened already,” the MP added.
So is Starmer himself a Big Dog, dominant enough to see off all comers? Perhaps for now. It’s not obvious Streeting, on the right of the party – boosted by his nimble reaction to the unfounded attack on him – could dispatch a soft-left candidate when it came to a vote of the grassroots.
That’s especially true because that wing of Labour MPs would have to agree on a candidate to endorse. The recently revived soft-left Tribune Group has already started squabbling among themselves after one of their number overstated their strength and readiness to challenge Starmer in a clumsy briefing to a newspaper.
Starmer’s allies even allow themselves jokes at the expense of Labour MP Clive Lewis. He’s a highly vocal critic of the whole Starmer project and has openly called for Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to return to Parliament and become the next premier, even offering to give up his own seat to facilitate it. But he’s not taken very seriously.
“Imagine it being Clive who brings you down?” one ally laughed.
Starmer’s shortcomings are well documented. He’s an ineffective communicator who struggles to connect with the public on a personal level or tell a convincing story about his vision for the country. That playbook is right there in the woeful communications and U-turns ahead of the Budget.
But at the G20 Starmer had a chance to play to his strengths: international diplomacy over Ukraine; a lofty disdain for political minnows discussing his future and a diligent focus on securing investment in the UK.
Behind the scenes, Starmer qualities are plain to see. He’s hardworking, affable, thoughtful, self-deprecating and relatably sweary. The South African ladies out for dinner in Johannesburg saw something in him which the British public clearly can’t.
Something is lost when the camera lens is on him and the Prime Minister hits professional lawyer mode.
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Leaving snow behind in the UK, South Africa’s balmy temperatures were a relief. It was fitting that the only times during the two-day trip that the heavens opened – with dramatic thunder and lightning – were when Starmer took a break from international showmanship to answer questions about home.
But heading back home to the British winter and a likely hailstorm after the Budget, Starmer is going to need a bigger umbrella.
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