Three years of Starmer: is there a clear vision for power?

Keir Starmer has pledged to be “ruthless” in his pursuit of Downing Street, but according to recent polling, still has much to do to convince the public that he has a plan for government.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Starmer said he had ignored calls from some in his party to “go faster, pump harder” as the next general election approaches – which could take place as late as 2025 – instead choosing to “keep the discipline” and stick to its strategy to get the party “over the finishing line”.

But while an almost 20-point lead in the polls suggests Starmer’s Labour Party should be preparing for power, a YouGov poll marking his third anniversary as Labour leader found that almost half of Britons believed he had not set out a clear vision for the party.

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‘Labour isn’t making an argument’

Asked whether Starmer had done well or badly at setting out a clear vision for Labour over the past three years, 31% said he had done well while 47% said he had done badly, according to the YouGov poll.

Among those who believed Starmer had failed to set out a clear vision were 32% of those who voted Labour at the last election, and 42% of those who backed Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Every successful political campaign needs a pithy slogan: “Harold Wilson’s 13 wasted years. David Cameron’s long-term economic plan. Take back control. Get Brexit done. For the many, not the few,” argued Red Box editor Patrick Maguire, in The Times.

In his three years as Labour leader, Starmer has cycled through no less than 12: “In September he promised a ‘fairer, greener future’; three months earlier he was ‘on your side’”, said Maguire. “In January 2022 his watchwords were ‘security, prosperity, respect’; which you shouldn’t confuse with the four he stressed in his 2021 conference speech: ‘Work, care, equality, security’.”

“I could keep going,” wrote Maguire, “but you follow my argument: Labour isn’t making one”.

And four years on from the 2019 general election campaign – one in which former leader Jeremy Corbyn also struggled to settle on a slogan – “the leadership of the Labour Party disagrees with itself almost as profoundly” as it did then, said Maguire. “Yet still it staggers on towards government. Now there’s a slogan to sum up Starmerism,” he added.

‘Magpie Conservatives are following Labour’s lead’

But Starmer may still be having an effect, at least on the opposition with the “magpie” Conservatives having now long taken their lead from the Labour Party, argued Jamie Grierson in The Guardian. The opposition had been calling for a “windfall tax” for months before then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the “energy profits levy” in May. “Perhaps the chancellor’s choice of words was to avoid the inevitable suggestion that his government had poached the policy from Labour,” said Grierson.

And more recently, the Conservatives have “copied a Labour proposal almost word for word” when they announced a policy promising to “make the right to request flexible working a day-one right” – a policy Labour had proposed in July 2021, said columnist Andy Beckett, also in The Guardian.

“Gradual transitions between a fading government and its likely replacement actually happen quite often in Britain,” said Beckett, noting that “in the 1970s, Jim Callaghan’s Labour administration adopted monetarist economic policies before Margaret Thatcher did,” while “John Major’s optimistic talk of ‘a classless society’ anticipated Tony Blair’s attempt to make Britain into a meritocracy.”

The period leading up to the next election is likely to be an “acrimonious” one, as the two parties fight for votes from the electorate, added Beckett. “When fading governments steal ideas from their opponents, it’s usually a sign that their diehards will do anything to stay in power.”