How the tables had turned. A relaxed Tory leader, Rishi Sunak, was almost bouncing with confidence in the House of Commons on Wednesday as he mocked the under-pressure Labour leader Keir Starmer from across the dais at prime minister’s questions (PMQs).
“When did the prime minister become a convert to fire and rehire,” Sunak said, jibing Starmer over the recent departure of his chief of staff Sue Gray, who is to become an envoy to devolved regions. He also lampooned him over a sprawling donor freebies row, the Labour tax rises he said he had warned about, and how Starmer’s government is about to “fiddle the figures” on debt rules to borrow more.
Observing this one-sided scene of PMQ pugilism, it seemed incongruous to consider that just three months previously, Starmer had been baiting an exhausted Sunak from the other side of the house, before in July giving him Britain’s second-biggest electoral drubbing since the 1940s.
Can an Irishman fix Keir Starmer’s premiership after 100 days of disaster?
With the appointment this week of Cork-born Morgan McSweeney as his chief of staff, British prime minister Keir Starmer must be hoping for some calm after a turbulent first 100 days in office.As the brains behind Starmer’s leadership campaign, McSweeney (47) is credited with having brought the prime minister to power.After a landslide win in July, Starmer’s first three months should have been spent consolidating that popularity and delivering on the pre-election promises of a selfless, calm and steady government with none of the drama of the previous administration.Instead there has been a stream of bad news stories and self-inflicted wounds.It’s not the image he projected when in opposition while bashing the Tory government for similar behaviour.Irish Times London correspondent Mark Paul looks back at Starmer’s difficult first three months, explains why McSweeney, a master strategist, is now in the top job and what banana skins await the new Labour leader in the coming months.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon.
Yet here was Sunak, outgoing captain of the sunken Tory ship, back on top already. Not just at PMQs, albeit from the opposite vantage point. But also in the polls. The latest figures from research group More in Common showed Starmer was now more unpopular than Sunak.
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Saturday marks Starmer’s first 100 days in Downing Street. In that time, he has gone from a net approval rating of plus five to minus 33.
It has been a mercilessly undulating ride overshadowed by the Downing Street infighting that precipitated Gray’s exit, the “free gear Keir” donor scandal of Starmer’s suits and designer glasses, and the political self-harm of the decision to cut winter fuel payments for many pensioners.
What has Starmer actually done in his first 100 days, and what has the 100 days done to him? And is there any respite on the horizon?
It should be remembered that Starmer was initially believed to have made a fast start. On a BBC Newsnight programme two months into the regime, historian Anthony Seldon was among those to praise the prime minister’s opening efforts.
“It has been a good start,” said Seldon, who compared Starmer to “Labour’s most successful prime minister”, Clement Attlee, who he said was similarly “studious”.
On day one, July 5th, Starmer scrapped the Rwanda deportation scheme for asylum seekers. Four days later the government launched a National Wealth Fund. Later that month he launched GB Energy, a new state green investment company to be based in Scotland. A hat-trick of manifesto pledges ticked off in as many weeks.
Labour also introduced legislation to nationalise the railways, published proposed reforms of Britain’s choked planning system, and on the international front Starmer reset relations with Ireland and the wider European Union – all before July had turned into August.
But there were also early warning signs. Starmer lost seven MPs who rebelled in a vote over his insistence that Labour would not end the two-child benefit cap.
His government also struck deals to end the industrial action that had stymied Britain’s public services, but at the steep cost of £9 billion, opening up the Labour administration to the charge that it was looking after its unions mates with public cash.
Starmer was broadly admired for his calm, assured and morally consistent handling of Britain’s riots during August. But then the donor row was seeded as scrutiny fell on why rich Labour peer Waheed Alli, who it would later emerge was funding the lifestyles of half the cabinet, had a top-level pass for Downing Street that even ministers couldn’t obtain.
The flames of that row began to lick up the new Labour government’s walls right at the same time it decided to release thousands of prisoners to ease overcrowding. Footage of inmates being met in jail car parks by their friends spraying Champagne was especially damaging.
Labour stumbled into its annual conference last month, where the atmosphere was repressed and uneasy. Much of the blame fell on Gray, who had been tasked with preparing the party for government. Internal rivalries in Downing Street sprawled on to the front pages and last week Starmer ditched her in favour of Morgan McSweeney, his top political adviser. The prime minister has also shaken up his wider Downing Street team.
Starmer had not planned to press the reset button so soon in his premiership. Some well-connected Labour insiders this week were speculating that the changes might only buy Starmer some time before the negative scrutiny of his tenure resumes. One even pondered if the prime minister’s position might come into question over coming months.
Britain’s International Investment Summit next week will give Starmer another chance to busy himself in more of the sort of multilateral glad-handing in which he has looked most comfortable since he entered Downing Street.
Chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves’s budget on October 30th is another chance for Starmer’s government to reset the narrative. The 16-week wait for the budget is seen in Westminster as having contributed to the recent sense of drift, and it now assumes almost totemic importance for the administration.
If it gets it right, the next 100 days might be more stable. Botch it, and the pressure will only crank up.
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