Following the debacle that led to the BBC Director-General’s exit this week, when I think of the Prime Minister’s tenure, I wonder if this is what it feels like for Keir Starmer when he says he has ‘confidence’ in somebody.
Authentic storytelling is the foundation of trust. The revelations from the BBC last week - its altering of footage of President Trump and its relaying of Hamas propaganda - prove the untold damage that can be done when that trust is betrayed.
For me, however, they outline why I am losing confidence in the leadership of our Prime Minister, who has so far failed to authentically deliver his own, our party’s, and subsequently our nation’s story.
The BBC’s manipulation of a U.S. President’s words has humiliated Britain abroad and strained our most important alliance. The Prime Minister could not formally dismiss the BBC’s Director-General, but he could have used the soft power of his office to signal moral authority and insist on accountability once the footage was proven fake.
Instead, it seemed that he hesitated, choosing to preserve the status quo over political expediency - an instinct born of his civil-servant-like caution.
In doing so, I fear he put Britain’s reputation and our relationship with Washington at risk. He mistook managerial functionality for statesmanship - an irony not lost on me, given his fascination with statesmanship abroad while appearing to abdicate domestic leadership on issues such as immigration and the small-boats crisis.
Leadership is not just managing the status quo; it's about demonstrating the courage to make independent decisions on principle.
The resignation of Tim Davie as BBC Director-General this week should have been preceded by the Prime Minister’s own condemnation. Political leadership could have applied pressure to restore integrity.
Keir Starmer has stood on the same landmine as Tim Davie. It just hasn't exploded yet - Stuart Fawcett | Getty Images
Instead, the Prime Minister hesitated again, and his silence signalled complicity. The response from Washington was allegedly a phone call to Nigel Farage, not to our Prime Minister.
The corporation’s coverage of the war against Hamas in Gaza has been widely criticised as reckless and one-sided. Its moral confusion has had a domestic cost, amplifying the extremist propaganda of Hamas and encouraging everyday extremism on our streets. British Jews have paid the price as antisemitic incidents have soared.
The government was forced to increase funding for the Community Security Trust so that Jewish children could attend school safely and worshippers could enter synagogues without fear.
Yet the same state that funds protection for Jewish communities also funds the broadcaster whose bias helped make that protection necessary.
I think of Second World War veteran Alec Penstone, who said on television that he no longer knew what he had fought for, given the state of this country. I can understand his anger.
He sees the same hatred his generation defeated abroad now finding a foothold at home - aided this time not by tyranny, but by timidity.
The courage that once defined our political leadership has been replaced by a politics of submission in the face of this threat.
Before the election, I worked for the Labour Party, planning and delivering campaigns across communities. The message was consistent: “We might vote Labour, but we don’t like your leader.” They didn’t distrust the party - they just didn’t believe in the story our leader told.
Storytelling matters because it binds people to purpose. Political storytelling is not about self-promotion; it is about conviction. It enfranchises people in the belief of a democratic purpose. Keir Starmer has so far failed to demonstrate the value of that.
The BBC’s recent failures and the government’s passivity toward them are two sides of the same coin: institutions that no longer believe in authentic storytelling.
Stories are what these institutions were built to tell; they should ensure trust in the institutions that serve the people they speak to.
Britain needs courage, not caution. Truth, not process. Leadership, not lawyering. The Labour Party now needs to consider if its leadership can see over the hill of the next General Election and carry the party beyond it in government, or another movement will.
Next year’s local elections will be the next test of this government’s credibility. It failed the last one and cannot afford to do so again. Labour needs to enter that contest with a leadership voters can relate to, or face another wipe-out.
By the spring, local candidates will be doing the hard miles on the doorsteps, but Labour risks being overtaken by a new political movement at the ballot box.
It needs a leader who can take the party into that contest with an authentic and compelling story that voters can believe in - and choose a vote for progress over protest. If the Prime Minister cannot muster the courage to deliver that story, like Tim Davie, this could be his final chapter.
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