Santa will have a tricky time this year fulfilling all the Christmas wish lists in Westminster. Keir Starmer is desperately hoping for a change in the political weather and Kemi Badenoch would like an in with Donald Trump. Ed Davey dreams that Labour’s electoral troubles will get so bad that proportional representation starts to look appealing. Nigel Farage, meanwhile, wants to avoid what usually happens with him and keep his party from falling out.
Come the new year, all four leaders will have their eyes on May’s local elections. The 21 county councils, ten unitary authorities and one metropolitan district are up for grabs for the first time since 2021. Back then Boris Johnson was riding a wave of popularity after the vaccine rollout and the Tories won Hartlepool from Labour. It is only months since Starmer won back the Red Wall and secured a large majority. But his government doesn’t seem to be on sound footing. ‘It feels rather shaky,’ admits a senior Whitehall figure.
The Prime Minister is fast discovering that it is a lot easier to work out what people want – more money in their pockets, reduced NHS waiting lists and controlled immigration – than to deliver it.
Starmer’s task has become harder since his ‘reset’ speech setting out his six milestones. ‘Too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline,’ he said. But these are the people he must rely on to get things done, and his words have led to a backlash from trade unions and civil servants. The appointment of Chris Wormald – known as ‘Wormy’ by colleagues – to be cabinet secretary is the sort of conventional choice that has led many to ask whether the government actually knows what it wants to achieve.
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