Does Keir Starmer have a plan to ‘reconnect’ with voters?

Sir Keir Starmer has just accepted that Labour needs to ‘change’ and ‘reconnect’ with voters, following the Hartlepool by-election result. In a rather stressed and evasive TV interview, the Labour leader repeatedly said his party needed to change, but refused to say whether there would be a reshuffle, or indeed what the party’s message would be. He insisted that this went ‘beyond’ a reshuffle or other questions of personnel.

The reason that Starmer was asked so often about whether there would be a reshuffle is that many in his party are pressing for a number of big changes. The three people in the firing line are shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds, Starmer’s political secretary Baroness Chapman, and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. Dodds was not a household name before being brought into the shadow chancellor brief, and has not changed that since taking on the job. She is in many ways a focal point for a wider anxiety in the party about the dearth of ‘big beasts’ in Starmer’s shadow cabinet.