Starmer pandered to Reform – and got what he deserved

Author of How They Broke Britain. His radio show is on LBC weekdays from 10am Donald Rumsfeld and Brenda from Bristol do not, at first glance, have much in common. One was the United States Defence Secretary under Gerald Ford and George W Bush, while the other achieved immortality of sorts after being vox popped by the BBC when Theresa May called a snap general election in April of 2017. But their most respective famous utterances – Rumsfeld’s “known knowns”, “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns”; Brenda’s plaintive, “You’re joking… not another one!” – together provide a neat anatomy of the parlous situation in which Sir Keir Starmer finds himself this weekend. We don’t know whether Andy Burnham will defeat him in a coming leadership election. We don’t even know whether Burnham will be in it. Psephology suggests that success in the by-election he first needs to win in Makerfield is far from guaranteed. We know that Wes Streeting’s hat will be in the ring but we don’t yet know who will, or won’t, join him. Al Carns looks likely to, Ed Miliband is widely expected to and Angela Rayner could well do. And then there’s the unknown unknowns. The spirit of Brenda, meanwhile, reflects a deep sense of frustration, widespread but under-reported, at yet another round of internecine warfare just two years after Starmer’s ascendancy promised an end to the chaos and contests with which the Conservatives infected post-Brexit British politics. A major worry, having spent the week canvassing opinion up and down the country on my LBC radio show, is that the instigators of this drama and the attendant orgy of speculation have underestimated their own voters’ yearning for stability. They have embraced Rumsfeld and forgotten Brenda. Caller after caller has acknowledged Starmer’s many failings but insisted that he deserves at least a little longer to turn things round. Helen from Manchester’s impassioned “Wind your neck in, Wes,” on Thursday’s show may not have been heeded by the now ex-health secretary, but it garnered a level of support rarely seen on our switchboard or in our inbox. And then there is the deeply inconvenient fact that the two men most responsible for inflicting historic damage on the Labour Party – and the Prime Minister – in last week’s elections are having a pretty miserable time of it themselves. Zack Polanski’s failure to pay the correct council tax for three years will haunt him for the foreseeable future. His failure to cast any vote at all in the recent elections runs the risk of rendering him the one thing from which no politician can ever recover: ridiculous. And the Count of Dodgy Crypto himself, Nigel Farage, is finding that accepting a £5m gift from a Thailand-based economic migrant – coupled with an extraordinary accumulation of houses – cannot be dismissed with the bluster and changing stories that have served him so well during previous times of trouble. In an ideal world, a united Labour party would be capitalising on both populists’ difficulties and offering up their own competence and consistency as a contrast. Instead, they are preparing for civil war. But this is not an ideal world. It is a world where dissatisfaction with the current government is almost off the charts and the personal popularity ratings of the Prime Minister are absolutely toxic. And regardless of whether any of this is entirely fair or justified, it is the responsibility of one man: Keir Starmer. Winter fuel allowances, welfare cuts, Peter Mandelson’s appointment, national insurance U-turns: it is never one single thing that holes an administration below the water line. But it is always one thing that sustains them through difficult periods: hope. And with Keir Starmer there is precious little, if any, left. The decision to prioritise Reform-curious voters over Labour loyalists and Green-friendly floaters has been catastrophic. The Prime Minister has failed to provide any sense of mission for supporters to rally around. Those of us who fear and clearly see the creeping rise of far-right sensibilities, feel not just abandoned, but betrayed – never more so than during the so-called “island of strangers” speech referenced in Wes Streeting’s resignation letter. For while we may yearn for a prolonged period of stability and baulk at the prospect of teammates turning on each other, the status quo is unsustainable. Keir Starmer was offered a chance to set the terms of his own departure. He turned it down. What follows is on him, not the rivals he will eventually face. Whoever they turn out to be. Listen to James O’Brien weekdays from 10am to 1pm on LBC – available on the LBC app, DAB digital radio/TV and LBC.co.uk