Labour's dilemma: tack right or focus on core supporters?

After punishing local elections, Keir Starmer faces a choice between taking on Reform UK or reassuring the left he can be a progressive force

- Jessica Elgot

In a week of difficult local elections, there was a special guest in No 10 to give a pep talk to staff: Arsène Wenger, the former manager of Arsenal, beloved of the prime minister. He and Keir Starmer have faced some common challenges, rebuilding their clubs and parties from low ebbs to extraordinary success.

Now Starmer may face a similar challenge to Wenger in his later years: whether he can adapt his tactical rigidity when results start to suffer. A successful strategy has been to win back Conservative switchers and working-class voters whom the party was felt to have abandoned. That has morphed into deep concern about the threat of Reform UK. In the Runcorn and Helsby by-election last week, lost by an agonising six votes having been one of Labour’s safest seats, Reform showed how it could turn out its machine.

But ministers have told the Guardian they are concerned that Labour’s own pendulum has swung too far and is alienating their own voters. In that same seat, Labour retained just 55% of its vote, suggesting many of its voters did not turn out. The Greens, however, clung on to their vote from last July.