With Starmer’s announced resignation, this opinion piece discusses his fall, and what we can expect from a Burnham government.
After the Makerfield by-election result, Keir Starmer’s options were dwindling. He could tough it out and try to deny a Labour leadership election, fight that race if it came, do a deal with any challenger that would leave him in charge if not in power, or resign.
He chose the latter.
The price of resignation
I suspect he had numerous meetings, phone calls, emails, and texts with his cabinet colleagues and party officials.
In his resignation speech he said that he had asked the parliamentary Labour party if he was the right man to lead them into the next general election. He said that he had the grace to accept their answer.
Leaving with grace and dignity may say more about his premiership than all the alleged mistakes of the past two years. No leaving the government for others to fix (Cameron); no tears (May); no complaints about how “eccentric” it is to let him go (Johnson); no short speech after a short tenure (Truss); no standing outside in the middle of a deluge (Sunak).
Just thank you and goodbye.
But what went wrong?
Starmer was not terrible.
He did not commit the UK to an ill thought out referendum and then leave (Cameron); he did not fail to deliver a sensible compromise with the EU after the Brexit referendum (May); he did not ignore an impending pandemic until it was almost too late, and then grossly break COVID-19 isolation rules his own government imposed on the public (Johnson); he did not trash the economy (Truss).
The mistakes Starmer made were those of a technocrat whose people skills and resolution were insufficient to command respect with his peers and the public. He was unable to generate a momentum that could direct the very real feelings of anger at the state of Britain towards positive action.
He allowed events to shape him, not the other way round. And worst of all he allowed his chancellor who had been captured by the Treasury to dictate the terms of reference for the government. The resignation of John Healey over defence expenditure was the culmination of a lack of management skills.
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Influence of the chancellors
There are several other factors in the failure that are common to his predecessors.
Firstly, the selection of counselors. Cameron, an arguably lazy figure, was sufficiently affable and clubbable to become Prime Minister, but was heavily influenced by his Chancellor George Osborne, who has gone down as being one of the arch villains of austerity.
Theresa May had her ‘chiefs’, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, who were blamed for the 2017 general election failure – when May nearly lost office to Jeremy Corbyn of all people. Timothy is now a Tory MP.
Johnson of course had Cummings who proceeded to annoy one and all and bully Johnson into the bargain.
Truss of course took no advice.
Sunak acted as a virtual caretaker PM, and spent most of his time patching and mending the tears and damage caused by his predecessors.
Starmer had the two M’s – Mandelson and McSweeney. Both came as a package. Mandelson was probably Starmer’s greatest failure. His provenance was murky and full of challenging relationships driven by his expensive lifestyle and sense of self importance.
McSweeney foisted Mandelson upon a reluctant Starmer, and orchestrated the perfectly suitable Sue Gray stepping down as Chief of Staff. His was the Change political slogan with no substance. He is a true child of Ulster, where winning, even for no purpose, is all that matters.
Eternal vigilance of the Fourth Estate
The second reason is, of course, the media. Any Labour government is going to face headwinds from a permanent source of opposition which is the mainstream press.
Only the Mirror and Guardian can be seen as supportive, with the rest ranging from the dissenting Independent to the fantastically mad Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, and Daily Mail. The last three read by oldies everywhere.
TV is (excepting the execrable GB News) pretty balanced, but they all want scoops and constant conflict to keep viewers watching. Social media is typically a bear pit, full of liars, halfwits, sensationalists, and the generally nasty. No sensible person will venture out into the darkest corners of Facebook or X. Is it any surprise that the government wants to restrict social media use for the under 16s?
Our part
Finally, there’s us — yes, we the people.
Why people have taken such a dislike to him I find extraordinary. Probably in the same way I found it extraordinary that people wept openly for Princess Diana when she died – having only ever seen her on the telly.
I put it down to misplaced blame where an individual is sought out as being responsible for all the failings of society or, alternatively, having impossibly saintly virtues.
What were Starmer’s achievements?
Starmer continued the policy of financial stability.
His administration ended the two-child benefit cap. Employment protection and renters rights were improved. British Steel saved from the scrap heap. House building was encouraged to tackle the housing crisis. A closer relationship with Europe engendered.
Starmer managed Trump to some extent, and stood up to him over the unnecessary US-Iran war. Painfully increasing economic growth, and reducing immigration substantially was also achieved.
The thing is, there is a constituency who care nothing for benefits claimants, own a buy-to-let, run a small business, and hate immigrants. And they are noisy in their opposition to what they see as ‘wokeness’.
Starmer was unable to divide what is a pretty fractious bunch to make a coalition of the cooperative. In short he fell between two stalls and pleased no one.
So what of Andy Burnham?
Burnham is not the messiah. But he has sufficient savvy to win enough hearts and minds to turn Labour’s fortunes around.
How will he do this? Firstly he has been around the block a bit. He has been a minister and knows Westminster – including all its foibles and failings. He has a plan term it Manchesterism, if you like, but it is based on bringing down the cost of living, building infrastructure to create jobs, but with the aim of raising growth, cutting the cost of living, and bringing everyone along in a general tide of prosperity.
I think he will increase borrowing for infrastructure and encourage the public to invest in the services they most rely on, such as water, electricity etc. I think outsourcing will reduce and in-house locally based service structures will start to appear. I think he will strive to end Westminster’s top down approach to everything – where gold plating and investment only in places where it might succeed change.
This won’t be a zero sum game, where London loses and elsewhere wins, but allows localism to succeed with help. How do I know all this? Because it is all in Head North a book by Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the Metro Mayor of Merseyside.
A changing game
Who fears a Burnham premiership the most? Nigel Farage for one. Having failed to strangle Burnham’s premiership at source he now faces dealing with a very different character at the dispatch box. Reform isn’t finished, as some believe, but their happy time may be at an end.
The other people who might not be happy will be the shareholders of Thames Water and South East Water. They make an easy target for Burnham to show that Thatcherite outsourcing is also on the wane by taking them both into “protective custody” for manifold public failings.
We live in interesting times and there will be more ups and downs yet to come with Andy Burnham. But I think it will be more joyful than the Starmer period.
