Tradition dictates married couples receive gifts made of leather on the third anniversary of their union. Labour leader Keir Starmer – whose party enjoys a sustained 15-20 per cent poll lead over the Conservatives – has marked his third anniversary in office this week by receiving an old-fashioned leathering in the press.
‘His party remains a mystery to voters’, according to the Guardian, which chose his anniversary to issue one of its regular ex-cathedras criticising Starmer for his dullness, lack of ambition and the absence of the ‘vision thing’. The paper was not alone: the Times revealed that nearly half of voters were not sure what Starmer stood for, while the Evening Standard published findings that showed he was only level-pegging with Rishi Sunak.
Starmer’s supporters suggest that his failure to make an impact on voters is partly due to the uniquely hostile media landscape within which Labour now operates. There is no chance, they say, of Starmer making the kind of deal Tony Blair made with Rupert Murdoch that turned the Sun temporarily into his personal propaganda arm.
Starmer has raced through even more slogans and catchphrases than did his doomed predecessor Ed Miliband
But even if this is the case, the British public are not exactly panting to hear from the Labour leader. The only time he has made any kind of impact was with the party’s proposed windfall tax on energy companies, as that was a matter of pressing importance to a public facing unaffordable bills. For the most part, they are deaf to the Labour leader, and will remain so until a general election looms over the horizon; it is only then Britons finally take politics almost as seriously as do the politicians and commentators.
As his critics point out though, Starmer has raced through even more slogans and catchphrases than did his doomed predecessor Ed Miliband. This suggests indecision about how to pitch Labour’s appeal and a lack of skill at the top to communicate it. Yet lurking in Starmer’s speeches, as well as the party’s many policy documents published since 2020, there is plenty of material for a clear Labour vision for the future. It might be said of Starmer, stealing the words of the beloved comedian Eric Morecambe, that the Labour leader is saying all the right words but not necessarily in the right order.
The fear, articulated by the Guardian, and one felt more generally across the party, is that until such a vision emerges, Labour is vulnerable to a Conservative recovery; that its large poll lead is soft and could be clawed back should Sunak makes good on his five pledges (to halve inflation, reduce debt, grow the economy, cut waiting lists and stop the boats).
Such anxieties are understandable for a party that has not won a general election in nearly 20 years. But they are not grounded in an understanding in how Labour has usually ended earlier prolonged periods of Conservative rule.
When New Labour won a Commons landslide in 1997, it promised a very modest kind of change from the Conservatives, one carefully tailored to the needs of affluent voters in the south and midlands. Indeed, one of its five key pledges was that it would not increase income tax. Blair won office less due to a popular fervour for any ‘vision thing’ and more because of alienation from the Conservatives. In fact, one polling organisation found that 46 per cent of those asked agreed with the statement: ‘I’m not enthusiastic about them [Labour] but they can’t be worse than the Tories’.
In the run up to the 1964 general election, Labour leader Harold Wilson skilfully associated his party with the unleashing of ‘the white heat of technological change’ and was credited with giving his party a dramatically new and modern image. Wilson had apparently nailed the ‘vision thing’. If so, this failed to translate to the electorate: while Labour won a Commons majority for the first time since 1950, the party’s vote was actually a few thousand less than the one it achieved in the 1959 general election, Labour’s third defeat in a row. The party won in 1964 because a significant number of Conservative voters shifted their support to the Liberals, unwilling to make the move to Labour, something which nonetheless helped Wilson capture several marginal seats.
The recent failure of the Conservatives to properly dent Labour’s poll lead despite the launch of Sunak’s five pledges, the Budget, new measures to ‘Stop the Boats’ and the Windsor Framework suggest voters have made up their mind about the party that has been in power for nearly 15 years. If they aren’t listening to Starmer, voters are certainly not listening to Sunak.
The Labour leader’s failure to deliver his own ‘vision thing’ might exercise some Labour members, but on election day, whenever it comes, if history is any guide, it is likely not to matter a jot.
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