The Labour PM most like Starmer – and it’s not Blair

POLITICS and pop music aren't the same. Except for this.

- Ron Beadle

Governments are compared against predecessors the same way as albums are compared to theirs.

The problem for Labour, as for, say, Alanis Morissette, is that nothing compares to the first time. Clement Attlee’s 1945 Government inherited a bankrupt war economy and yet created the NHS and brought us close to socialism. In 1995 ‘Jagged Little Pill’ sold more than any other debut album, won four Grammies, included five hit singles and spent years in the charts. Labour, like ‘Alanis Morissette, can never do as well again.

Pedants might remind me that Labour ran minority governments before 1945, and Alanis released two earlier albums in Canada, but I still think my point holds. So when July brought Sir Keir Starmer's first anniversary and the eightieth anniversary of Labour's 1945 victory, comparisons were all in vogue. The only thing in Sir Keir’s favour was that his majority (172) was larger than Clement Attlee’s (147) but even this is problematic since more is expected of government with large majorities.