A man knocks on the door of a house. He feels well prepared for the evening ahead. He is wearing a dinner jacket, bow tie, shiny black shoes and a bottle of wine. He goes inside. It’s an orgy, and everyone else is naked.
Or a man shows up for a Queensberry-rules bantamweight bout, only to find that the promoter has arranged a cage fight – biting and beating are highly encouraged.
It only means that Keir Starmer came to a career in politics unprepared for what a career in politics actually means.
A solitary, guarded character, he wanted to thrive in a world shaped by communal extroverts and fueled by personal relationships, deals and betrayals. Cautious in demeanor and legalistic in language, he had entered into a frenzied contest of persuasion, argument, and hyperbole.
Accustomed, as in court, to take his word and be treated with respect, he found himself in a wild and mocking environment, where many thought him a compulsive liar and a figure of fun.
This torture of being a stubborn square peg in a series of narrow, round holes has been Starmer’s fate; but it was not, strictly speaking, his fault. After all, his hatred of politics and his disdain for it is shared by many millions of voters. And was it, in the end, so unreasonable? Who would take over a defeated party ravaged by anti-Semitism and strife, and face Boris Johnson calling you a “useless human pillar” and conclude that politics is a great romance?
The only problem was that, at the time when all this was clear, he was Prime Minister.
Throughout his life, Starmer had been competitive and ambitious. Rising to the top at Westminster must have seemed just the next obvious thing – the biggest gong, the ultimate flourish. The problem is that politics is unlike anything else and much, much harder than it looks from the outside. I think he knows that now.
Keir Starmer may have made decisions that were hated across the country, from the winter fuel cut to the Chagos deal and the failure to properly fund defence. He may have let himself down, as in the early, inexplicable acceptance of money to buy glasses and clothes. He certainly treated the people around him, who only wanted to help, icily… and then dismissed them, not even face to face.
These are profound failures. They are part of the larger story of failure. But they don’t quite explain the hatred he began to attract from less informed voters. After all, he hadn’t brought Britain close to a market meltdown like Liz Truss. He had not held parties in Downing Street when the rest of the country was in lockdown. All right; he could sound irritating. But he was not a dangerous maniac.
And there is already seller’s remorse. It was Starmer really so bad? Have we all been beasts and unfair to him? What must it be like at the weekend, huddled around the soft comforts and sunlit charms of Checkers, knowing that so many ministers who owed their jobs to him had been beaten? He will be angry. He will be in great pain. And this is reasonable.
If, as it seems, he will allow a relatively orderly transition to Andy Burnham, then I think Labor will remember him favorably for the 2024 election; to make the party acceptable to middle-class voters; and for his deft and patient handling of that unpredictable and dangerous man in the White House.
They will remember, more importantly than any of this, that he spoke out loud and clear against the poisonous race politics facing Britain, partly imported by bad actors abroad.
If it was not his fault that he was unprepared for the realities of politics, it was also not his fault that he inherited a country already so weakened by Brexit and the costs of the war in Ukraine; and an electorate sold the illusive prospect of conservative fiscal fantasy. This was a legacy with which a greater natural politician would have struggled. Starmer couldn’t handle it, but it would have taxed a Wilson or a Blair heavily.
What has been his fault and the biggest contributor to his downfall is his lack of curiosity. He didn’t challenge the underlying politics of the last election campaign – he didn’t wonder if this was a massive vote against the Conservatives, and therefore a situation where he needed to leave himself enough room to raise the funds to make the difference, he promised. Did that conversation ever happen?
In office, soon after, he did not challenge the Treasury’s early mistakes; he didn’t want to hear the increasingly panicky reports from his supporters about winter fuel; he didn’t stress his welfare reforms, or stick with them when the going gets tough; on ID cards, he wasn’t listening to those who told him better ways to sell the policy. He did not want to hear about the dangers of appointing Peter Mandelson to Washington. He accepted the Treasury’s arguments against further increases in defense spending, without effectively deferring. This was more than a lack of curiosity: did he mean what he said about the Russian threat?
There are more examples. The most common criticism of Starmer has been his lack of vision. A colleague asked him early on why he wanted to take over the Labor Party – what was his vision for it? He replied that he wanted to tear out anti-Semitism “by the roots”. His colleague walked away, thinking, “Yes, great being against Jew-hatred… But is this it?”
As David Hockney might have said, being able to paint the big picture matters. A leader who could have made the big case for the country of Britain in the turbulent 2020s, about the changes in spending that needed to be made, our strengths as a country and a better future we can still achieve, would have done better.
All leaders are tested by unexpected and sometimes shocking turns: but if you don’t know where you’re going, you end up spinning when the punches come. People talk about ideology – but it’s just knowing what you really think and therefore what your priorities are.
The lack of this, over the past two years, has led to such incoherent positions as claiming that growth is the number one priority, while business is saddled with new taxes and new regulations. So – was it growth or was it justice?
Basically, though, it’s a lack of curiosity that has killed Keir Starmer politically. Good politicians thirst for political arguments – not, “who’s up, who’s down?” – but “how are we going to improve this public service? Were we wrong when we said…? How can we sell it?” They are surrounded by a quiet and uninterrupted crowd. And sometimes it’s not smooth sailing: Margaret Thatcher incited opponents in her cabinet to challenge him. A good shot, if it resulted in better policy, she thought that was a good thing.
Keir Starmer seems to dislike the political argument altogether and is even annoyed by it. This is very much like a fish arguing against water. Leadership in a democracy is a creaking, argumentative process of pushing, testing, contradicting, refuting. Starmer didn’t like to squeak. It may seem like a small thing: but right now, he knows how terrible the consequences have been personally.
Away from politics, he seems a quiet, kind man who knows who he is, surrounded by a loving family and many true close friends. He withdrew from that world and, driven by ambition and duty, chose a painful, treacherous path in an extremely difficult time. It didn’t work – not his fault in any way. He deserves a long rest and a happier and more peaceful life behind him.
(Further reading: The Makerfield Test)
