Keir Starmer: too boring for power?
Party insiders worry their leader's lack of charisma may be holding Labour back

In theory, Keir Starmer and his colleagues should be “feeling chirpy”, said Jim Pickard in the Financial Times (FT). The Government’s “woes” are legion, and Labour is well ahead at the polls.
But many in the party “fret” that, in the circumstances, they should be much further ahead, and admit that their leader’s “lack of vision and charisma” may be the problem. When one polling firm, JL Partners, recently quizzed members of the public on the adjectives they’d use to describe Starmer, the most common answer was “boring”, although “dull”, “uninspiring” and “bland” also featured.
Personally I don’t think Starmer should worry too much about the boredom issue, said Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “After the relentless political chaos of recent years, the electorate might actually welcome a good, solid spell of tedium.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
More worrying is that an awful lot of voters also described him as “weak”. And there’s some justice in that. For instance, whenever he has been asked to solve that “brain-teasing conundrum, What is a woman?” Starmer has struggled.
Last week, he told his shadow cabinet to “stop calling me boring”, said Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. Then, in an attempt to be interesting, at Prime Minister’s Questions, he “made a couple of off-colour quips about Love Island, threw in some comic Star Wars references, and branded [the PM] Jabba the Hutt”. It was “excruciating”. He’d be better off telling people what he actually believes. For instance, whose side is he on over the rail strikes?
Indeed, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Bores have often done well in politics, from the Labour Party’s own Clement Attlee – dismissed by Churchill as a “sheep in sheep’s clothing” – to the current chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, “a grey lawyer” whose speech is so robotic that he is dubbed “the Scholzomat”.
Boring politicians do, however, need exciting ideas to succeed, and Labour has only had one of those recently: the windfall tax on energy companies, which was promptly nabbed by the Tories. You can’t win with a dull leader and dull policies: the party must now find many more “emblematic ideas that make the political weather”.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
How the civil service works – and why critics say it needs reform
The Explainer Keir Starmer wants to 'rewire' Whitehall, which he has claimed is too 'comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline'
-
Brexit 'reset' deal: how will it work?
In Depth Keir Stamer says the deal is a 'win-win', but he faces claims that he has 'surrendered' to Brussels on fishing rights
-
Are we entering the post-Brexit era?
Today's Big Question Keir Starmer's 'big bet' with his EU reset deal is that 'nobody really cares' about Brexit any more
-
Is Starmer's plan to send migrants overseas Rwanda 2.0?
Today's Big Question Failed asylum seekers could be removed to Balkan nations under new government plans
-
Can Starmer sell himself as the 'tough on immigration' PM?
Today's Big Question Former human rights lawyer 'now needs to own the change – not just mouth the slogans' to win over a sceptical public
-
Man arrested after 'suspicious' fires at properties linked to Keir Starmer
Speed Read Prime minister thanks emergency services after fire at his former family home in north London
-
Trump, UK's Starmer outline first post-tariff deal
speed read President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer struck a 'historic' agreement to eliminate some of the former's imposed tariffs
-
Where is the left-wing Reform?
Today's Big Question As the Labour Party leans towards the right, progressive voters have been left with few alternatives