Starmer’s in power, but is he in control?
Labour MPs barely had time to gather for a group photo in Westminster before the summer recess started and they were packed off back to the constituencies. The lucky ones may even have made it abroad for a holiday.
Today, when they file back into the Parliament and cram themselves onto the government benches in the House of Commons, we’ll be reminded of the scale of that July election victory.
Sir Keir Starmer’s majority is enormous. What’s more, his opponents are weakened and divided. The SNP will be even less of an irritant than it used to be while the Conservatives are painfully reduced in size, divided over their future and barely capable of effective opposition.
Starmer and his Cabinet will draw strength from this state of affairs, and they’ll need to; the first two months in office have not been easy. On the eve of MPs’ return to Westminster, the weekend’s main political news stories sounded more like dispatches from the dying days of a government, concerning a cronyism row that won’t go away; the Transport Minister’s previous role in getting a rail worker sacked for raising safety concerns; and Parliament’s biggest landlord – newly elected Labour MP Jas Athwal – offering profound apologies for the state of his bug-infested and mouldy flats.
On top of this, the Prime Minister himself has chosen to set the national mood music to Miserable FM, offering up a daily diet of doom, hardship and pessimism. Little wonder some Labour MPs are questioning the strategy, with several asking “where’s the hope?” in the weekend papers.
When Starmer said last week that “things will get worse before they get better” he may not have been referring to his party’s poll rating – or his personal approval rating – but both are on the slide. Tony Blair’s advice over the weekend was “don’t be distracted by the critics” and it’s clear that Starmer and his advisors are determined to stick to the strategy of hard truths now, followed by better days ahead.
The question is whether they can control the narrative – and events – long enough for that approach to pay off. The evidence of their first two months in office suggests that might be a tall order.