Red alert: Starmer reaches for the reset button

Changes of tack haven't helped recent PMs, but there's a silver lining for Sir Keir

- Katy Balls

There comes a time in any government when a prime minister must push the reset button. In 2017, Theresa May tried to reset her premiership after the disastrous snap election with a speech on the British dream that was quickly overshadowed by a repeated cough, falling set and a prankster handing her a P45. In early 2022 — three years after his election win — Boris Johnson attempted to calm a restive party with the promise of “Operation Red Meat”, a bunch of policies aimed at the Tory grassroots. It bought Johnson a little time — but both leaders were eventually forced out by their unhappy MPs.

So, there’s good reason that aides in today’s No 10 are allergic at even the mention of the R-word. Yet this is the word being bandied around Westminster ahead of Sir Keir Starmer’s keynote speech today. The set piece event — which will see Starmer set himself new targets and speak to his priorities — has quickly been branded a major reset of his premiership less than six months in. “It’s definitely not a reset,” insists a No 10 aide. Instead allies of Starmer say it is simply a continuation of the path they are already on. What’s more, no one is seriously suggesting Starmer so soon after an election win is in serious trouble when it comes to his position.

Yet the way even word of the speech has been received speaks to the political problem the Prime Minister finds himself in. Since Starmer entered 10 Downing Street, his party’s voting intention numbers have fallen and his personal ratings have plummeted. None of this is unusual for a government across its term — but usually these things are dismissed as mid-term blues, so it is a cause of alarm to ministers that they seem to have got to this stage less than six months in.