Keir Starmer and Labour off to a spluttering start in Government

Paul Montague-Smith, senior counsel – public affairs at MRM, considers Keir Starmer and the Labour Party’s first few months in power, and whether it has gotten off to a spluttering start

It was meant to be a celebration of an historic victory. An opportunity for the new Government to set out its vision for a changed country.

And to an extent it was, and the Government did, but not as much as many conference goers – delegates and business representatives alike – expected or hoped for. Balancing hope and expectation against reality was, though, always going to be tricky.

The Government has been ramming home its narrative of broken public services and finances inherited from the Conservatives ever since the election. Delegates at the conference yearned for something more optimistic. They didn’t get it. It would, though, have been odd if they had, given a painful Budget is on its way soon.

As the election result showed, Labour’s victory was not down to huge enthusiasm for the party, but a country fed up with the Conservatives. Any honeymoon was therefore likely to be short, but the Prime Minister would probably have expected it to last longer. His public approval ratings have tanked.

A recent poll suggests people now view him less favourably than Rishi Sunak. Of course, the revelations and media focus on donations for suits, glasses and other freebies haven’t helped and detracted from the narrative of change having begun that the party wanted to get across.

The downturn in popularity is unlikely to reverse soon. The Prime Minister promised that by taking difficult decisions now, the country will emerge into the light at the end of the tunnel.

Strategically it makes sense to get the grim stuff out of the way and hope the benefits are seen over the other four years you expect to have in office. But it is looking like a long tunnel.

Everything hinges on the Government being able to stimulate the growth needed to bring about the change he seeks. The feeling at conference amongst many was that the gloomy narrative is itself now working against that primary objective.

From the perspective of business, the Government has been making the right noises, clearly saying it is pro-business and enterprise, but businesses across multiple sectors are looking for greater clarity and certainty to attract and kickstart the investment needed to spur growth. The Government’s investment summit next month may be an indicator of international appetite to send capital our way.  

An industrial strategy is promised in the spring, which may or may not deliver the clarity and confidence that businesses are looking for. Seven months, though, is considered rather a long time in the business world and there is a strong desire for the Government to move more quickly.

To be fair, the Government has been in power for less than three months and has announced a raft of decisions across multiple sectors. There is also only so much bandwidth in government for ministers and civil servants to decide and implement policies.

While media commentators bemoaned the lack of policy announcements at conference, it’s hardly a surprise when the Budget and departmental budgets for the next financial year are announced in a month. Only when the Government knows how much money it has to play with can it take sensible decisions on how it will be spent.

But as with the industrial strategy, the spending review to determine departments’ budgets for the next three financial years won’t conclude until next spring.

The Prime Minister and his team will be frustrated that their first conference in 14 years as the party of government was dominated by freebies and briefings about infighting in Number 10. When your MPs are talking about the need to get a grip so early in your administration, things haven’t gone particularly well.

The Prime Minister and his team are finding that life in government is much more challenging than in opposition. However difficult, though, they know only too well that it is still far better than the absence of power.

But if they don’t manage the Budget statement well, the former Conservative voters who delivered Labour its massive majority may form an early and firm dim view of the new Government, from which it will be difficult to win them back over.