Keir starmer

Keir Starmer’s interview gamble pays off

One of the biggest challenges for any leader of the opposition is getting noticed. Doing that requires taking some risks and Keir Starmer’s sit down with Piers Morgan was a bit of a risk – politicians can get caught out in these more personal formats. Starmer did well, though. He didn’t fall into any Nick Clegg style traps; navigating the sex and drugs questions with relative ease. He talked movingly about his mother, and how she coped with her long illness. His relationship with his own father clearly wasn’t easy, Starmer said the only time his father ever said he was proud of him was when he passed the 11-plus,

Watch: Keir Starmer refuses to deny taking drugs at university

Keir Starmer’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ is a sign of desperation. The Labour leader knows he must do something about the dire situation his party is in, following the disastrous defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. One of the big criticisms levelled at Starmer is that he lacks charisma. His decision to agree to be interviewed by Morgan is an attempt to do something about that, by showing people the ‘real’ Starmer. Unfortunately, though, it seems there are some things that remain off limits, not least what Starmer the student got up to during his time at Leeds university.  Morgan quizzed Starmer at least ten times on whether the

‘There is no alternative’: Why Boris will keep winning

Those of us who generally wish this Government well and consider Boris Johnson a preferable holder of the office of prime minister to any likely alternative are facing a new accusation this weekend. The vast brigade of pinko pundits who have predicted Johnson’s downfall on numerous occasions only to be proved wrong each time, have changed tack. They now mostly acknowledge that rows over prorogations or pelmets – or even this week’s Dominic Cummings spectacular – are likely to have only a very limited impact upon public opinion. But they shake their heads sadly at us and tell us this is not the point. Rather, what actually matters is that

Sir Keir was defeated by his own strategy at PMQs

The great thing about being trashed in the polls is that the tiniest improvement looks like a triumphant comeback. At PMQs the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, needed to do some minor damage to Boris’s armour. The teeniest dent could be spun as a glorious revival. But Sir Keir was defeated by his own strategy. He attacked the government’s red-amber-green system of travel restrictions. This metaphorical tricolour is easy to interpret: amber-list countries are safe to travel to except when they’re dangerous. And amber-list countries are dangerous to travel to except when they’re safe. It’s the legal equivalent of an ‘amber shopping day,’ when thieves can operate with impunity. Sir

Isabel Hardman

Starmer’s flip-flopping came back to haunt him at PMQs

Prime Minister’s Questions today wasn’t a particularly easy session for either man taking the main exchanges. For Boris Johnson, it was a struggle to answer what Sir Keir Starmer referred to as a ‘simple question that goes to the heart of this issue’: if it’s not advisable for people to travel to amber list countries unless absolutely necessary, is it now easier for them to do so?  Johnson repeatedly stressed that the government has been clear on travel restrictions, quarantine measures and penalties for failing to observe these rules. But a simple rule in politics is that if you’re having to insist you’ve been clear, then your messages are as

Patrick O'Flynn

Andy Burnham is Labour’s king over the water

There are few things so perilous for an under-performing opposition leader as the emergence of a ‘king over the water’. This is typically someone who is a member of the same party with an impressive track record but who isn’t currently in the Commons and is therefore not subject to the patronage wielded by the leader. As the leader flails, the king over the water is deemed to have acquired miraculous powers. Each new poll recording the leader’s unpopularity launches a thousand new daydreams among party members fondly imagining how the king over the water would reshape things in ways they yearn for. Keir Starmer is now faced with just

The shamelessness of Andy Burnham

Of all the people who should carry the can for Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour party, Andy Burnham doesn’t get his fair share of the stick. It was, after all, Burnham’s fear of being the most left-wing candidate in the 2015 leadership contest that led to Corbyn being ‘loaned’ enough MPs’ votes to get Dear Jeremy on the ballot. Despite this fact, Burnham felt no shame in saying in an interview this weekend that, ‘I still think life would have been different if I had won in 2015’, as if he hadn’t been his own worst enemy in denying that victory from taking place. That’s before we move onto

Keir Starmer isn’t Labour’s biggest problem

Keir Starmer has turned a drama into a crisis. The local elections were always going to be difficult for Labour. The government is enjoying the political dividend of the vaccine rollout, and approval for its handling of the Covid crisis is now back to where it was a month into the first national lockdown. Much of the world is still struggling, but Britain has the lowest Covid levels in Europe and Boris Johnson’s approval rating is far higher as a result. He triumphed, and Labour struggled. But Starmer made this so much worse by his actions before and after polling day. The first error was to hold the Hartlepool by-election

Respect for Rayner is growing after Starmer’s failed sacking

The resignation of Carolyn Harris as Sir Keir Starmer’s parliamentary private secretary (more here from Steerpike) shows that the peace between Angela Rayner and the Labour leader is very much on Rayner’s terms. Harris is reported to have left the job after being accused of spreading baseless rumours about the deputy leader’s private life. There have been furious briefings from both sides over the past few days but Rayner has not had to sack anyone from her side, showing she has ended up with more power than Starmer. A number of her frontbench colleagues are also seriously impressed by the way in which she negotiated her new lengthy job title over

Nine lessons from the elections

Here are the big things I learned from Thursday’s elections and their aftermath. 1. The Scottish parliament will vote to hold a referendum on independence for Scotland — but the legislation probably won’t be introduced till late 2022. 2. The earliest there would be a referendum would be 2023. 3. Boris Johnson’s revealed preference is to persuade the people of Scotland of the merits of remaining within the UK, rather than exploiting the Westminster government’s ‘reserve power’ to veto independence. He wants to avoid what would be widely seen in Scotland as the tyranny of Westminster depriving the Scottish people of a voice on their future. That means a referendum in

Patrick O'Flynn

Starmer is Labour’s Iain Duncan Smith

After a gruelling election campaign the most important thing to do is to have a rest and have a think. Everyone is exhausted and things done in the heat of the moment are liable to be ill-considered. During my own brief time in electoral politics, I learned this the hard way. I played a leading role in an idiotic falling out at the top of Ukip after it secured almost four million votes but just one seat in the 2015 general election. A more seasoned colleague went on holiday and later described to me how he had watched the unedifying feuding unfold on a smartphone from his balcony while sipping gin

Welsh Labour proves again it’s a distinctive, winning brand

After the news of a Tory landslide in Hartlepool was announced early Friday morning, senior Welsh Labour figures were worried. The scale of defeat in the North of England was worse than expected, and represented nothing short of a disaster for Keir Starmer’s leadership. Could the same fate be expected for Labour’s Red Wall in North and South Wales, which started to crack in the 2019 general election? The answer, in short, is no. Welsh Labour stormed to a breathtaking victory in the Senedd election, gaining a seat from its 2016 hall to win thirty of the sixty places in Cardiff Bay. There was a Tory whimper but no bang:

Keir Starmer can’t afford to wait for the Tories to defeat themselves

‘We’re trapped between the two worlds,’ said a Labour worker during the last days of the party’s ill-fated Hartlepool by-election campaign. She meant Labour was strapped for cash, lacking the many small donations that came with Jeremy Corbyn and the big donors who backed Tony Blair. Her comment, however, had a wider relevance. In trying to keep hold of younger, middle-class metropolitan voters who already supported Labour while also attracting back older, small town working-class voters who have abandoned the party over recent elections, the various contests held on Thursday showed Keir Starmer was unable to do either. With the Brexit divide still reinforcing ongoing demographic trends that have seen

Isabel Hardman

Is Keir Starmer destined to become a ‘Kinnock-esque’ figure?

Sir Keir Starmer is planning a policy review as part of his plans to ‘change’ Labour after the dismal Super Thursday results. This sounds, to put it mildly, like a rather small response to a rather big problem. Talking to MPs and campaigners over the past 24 hours, I have noticed a shift in the way many of them describe Labour’s challenge. The Hartlepool result has underlined that the party’s recovery hasn’t yet started, and that it is going to be a very, very long time before that recovery can take the party back into government. Starmer could become a Kinnock-esque figure, who might merely prepare the ground for another

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,

Robert Peston

Can Starmer reverse the horror of Hartlepool?

The Tory victory in Hartlepool, with a swing of 16 per cent and the biggest increase in a governing party’s vote in any by-election since 1945, is a terrible blow to Labour hopes that the choice of Sir Keir Starmer would soon stem their rot. What happened in what was a safe Labour seat — it was Peter Mandelson’s in New Labour’s heyday — is that voters who backed the Brexit party in 2019 switched to the Tories. According to the election analyst Matt Singh, if that sort of shift were repeated in other seats where the Brexit party made an impact then more than 20 Labour MPs would lose

Katy Balls

How much trouble is Starmer in?

Keir Starmer is facing a rocky few days as the party’s results from the local elections start to come in. Labour has lost Hartlepool with the Tories taking the seat with a majority of 6,940. While many Labour campaigners were braced for defeat, the margin by which the Conservatives have won has taken both pollsters and those on the ground by surprise. The problem for Starmer is that although it will be a few days before we have the whole picture, it appears to be a sign of things to come.  The party is losing votes on both sides. As well as Tory gains from Labour in Northumberland, Labour has also

James Forsyth

Tories win Hartlepool, throwing Starmer’s leadership into crisis

The Tories have taken Hartlepool on a remarkable 16 per cent swing from Labour. The Tories saw the biggest increase — 23 per cent — in a governing party’s share of the vote in a by-election in the post-war era. Labour has been trounced in a seat that has been theirs since its creation in 1974. Labour’s defeat shows that Keir Starmer is nowhere near stopping the party’s bleeding in the red wall. It suggests that the 2019 election was not a freak result driven by voters’ desire to get Brexit done and their fear of Jeremy Corbyn but rather part of a realignment of English politics — and that

Hartlepool and the theft of the Labour party

When the unthinkable happened in 1882 and England lost a test match on home soil to Australia there followed a mock obituary in the Sporting Times. ‘In Affectionate Remembrance of English Cricket, which died at the Oval on 29 August 1882, deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances,’ it read, adding that: ‘The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.’ It will be tempting to compose something similar on behalf of the Labour party should it be defeated by the Conservatives in the Hartlepool parliamentary by-election later this week. The most appropriate destination for the ashes would surely be the chichi London neighbourhood

Hartlepool turning blue would mean a Labour crisis

We have two years of elections on Thursday. But in England, the Hartlepool by-election is fast becoming the defining contest. If the Tories take the seat, which has always been Labour’s, it will show that Keir Starmer hasn’t stopped the bleeding for Labour in the red wall. It will indicate that the realignment of English politics is continuing even without Brexit and Corbyn. A Tory win would suggest that the 2019 general election was not a freak result or a unique product of voters’ desire to get Brexit done combined with their concerns about Corbyn, but rather part of a substantial shift in the electoral geography of England. Hartlepool turning blue