In the event of an electoral bloodbath, we got a taste of what post-election Labor could look like this morning with Daily Telegraphsplash Eluned Morgan, the leader of Welsh Labor, said frankly that Keir Starmer “appears as a matter on the doorstep”.
While we have been out and across the country, NS The policy team has heard much of the same, privately, from Labor candidates. A prominent Scottish Labor MSP recently described the Prime Minister to me as “electoral kryptonite” in Scotland.
Plans are being made to shore up Starmer’s position if/when he faces a wave of personal allegations about the party’s performance. But all this will come after the party potentially loses thousands of council seats and comes third in Wales – and the tide of emotion may be hard to stem.
What strikes me as remarkable is how little expectation Labor management had of these results. Many past governments in office have faced punishing mid-term electoral tests but have found clever ways of framing them as bad but not terrible – the most famous, perhaps, was in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher’s Tories, at a low ebb, held on to their wins in Westminster and Wandsworth for health.
In 2026, such narratives from Labor have been elusive as it is difficult to make confident predictions about any of the party’s heartlands. So there is no ready-made story of what a Prime Minister-worthy night might look like. We are in the realm of hope for miracles.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; get it every morning by subscribing to Substackhere
(Further reading: Angela vs Andy vs Wes vs Keir)
