'Keir Starmer's honeymoon is over...and it's one he'd rather forget' - Brendan Clarke-Smith
Brendan Clarke Smith on Starmer's disastrous honeymoon
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Former Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith gives his take on why Labour's support has drained away so quickly
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Usually marking the first 100 days in office is a time to celebrate and reflect on early wins for a Government, but for Keir Starmer, it has turned into a honeymoon he would rather forget.
Recent polling from More In Common now shows Labour and the Conservatives neck-and-neck on 27 per cent, with Reform climbing to 21 per cent and the Liberal Democrats up to 13 per cent.
Even more worrying for Labour is the poll showing 34 per cent prefer the Conservative Government. How could Labour’s support drop so quickly?
Many still speculate as to the reasoning behind Rishi Sunak calling a July election and whether he should have held on until November or later. But the reality is that Labour’s fall from grace is very much self-inflicted and demonstrates the difference between being in Opposition and being held to account as a Government.
Policies that sound good to the public don’t always work in reality. Trying to raise extra sums by bashing private school parents with VAT or targeting non-doms are prime examples.
Let’s start with the Winter Fuel Payment. A little like Fight Club, it’s an unwritten rule in British politics that you don’t upset pensioners.
Claims that ‘rich retired people’ didn’t need the payment fell flat very quickly when it became clear that those who earned only a couple of pounds over the Pension Credit limit would also lose their payment, along with millions of others. Despite the promise of lower energy bills at the election, the price cap also increased.
Then there’s the release of prisoners, some of whom were convicted of very serious offences, to seemingly make way for people who had written the wrong thing on social media. The nickname ‘Two Tier Keir’ was born.
But isn’t this all to pay for the ‘£22billion black hole’ Chancellor Rachel Reeves outlined? As we still await evidence of this black hole, was there a move towards austerity and restraint to pay for it?
Not if you are a train driver or represent one of the unions whose funding Labour relied on so much. Huge above-inflation pay rises – including £300 bonuses announced for train guards who work a whole five days a week – have been coupled with Ed Miliband’s pledge of £11.6billion in ‘climate aid’.
Anybody would think they made this black hole up.
Stop the boats? Not unless they mean P&O and the £1billion investment that was stalled (on the eve of the investment summit), following a public attack from Transport Secretary Louise Haigh. No10 swiftly stated that her words did not represent the views of the Government, despite Haigh being a Government minister and her words being in a Government press release.
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I would say she was thrown under the bus, but perhaps in this case it is a ferry instead.
Rwanda, of course, was scrapped and crossings are at a record number for the year. The Chagos Islands were gifted to China-allied Mauritius, with the added insult of us actually paying for the privilege. Where next? Gibraltar? The Falklands?
I didn’t expect Manchester United boss Erik Ten Hag to outlast Sue Gray this season, but credit where it’s due. The Downing Street operation, including the media management of freebie-gate and Lord Alli, has been truly shambolic and dogged by infighting already.
All of this chaos makes me want to go to some tropical island to get away from it all. If anybody at the Foreign Office is reading this, I’m prepared to offer the Government two Taylor Swift tickets in exchange for one.
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