If Labour wants to get out of the doldrums it must deliver

Keir Starmer's "new" government already feels like an "old" one. There is no precedent for an incoming government losing so much support so quickly.

- ANDREW GRICE

At this stage after Labour’s previous landslide in 1997, the party had put on 10 points in the opinion polls, and Tony Blair was still in his “walking on water” phase, with a net satisfaction rating of plus 34 per cent. In contrast, Starmer’s net approval rating (when voters are asked if he is doing a good job) has slumped from plus 11 per cent to minus 38 per cent since last year’s general election.

Labour’s projected share of the national vote in last Thursday’s local elections (20 per cent) was 14 points down on the general election and Labour’s worst since 2009 – a year before it was booted out after 13 years in office.

For Starmer, the “mid-term blues” that afflict all governments have become the “first-year blues”. It seems he is warming to a cabinet reshuffle, the classic mid-term trick of a tired government, though in my experience it rarely makes much difference.

Last Thursday’s dire local election results highlight mistakes still too painful for Labour to admit, notably Rachel Reeves’s disastrous decision to means-test the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. “It has become symbolic of this government,” one minister admitted. Some backbenchers even call it “our poll tax” – the flat-rate council charge that contributed hugely to Margaret Thatcher’s downfall in 1990.