Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock mounted a defense of Keir Starmer this week, saying it is “not too late” for the Prime Minister to turn his fortunes around.

Speaking at an event at the UnHerd Club, Kinnock urged Starmer to show greater confidence in his leadership. “He’s got the kit; all he’s got to do is believe in himself enough to get on with it,” Kinnock said. “I just wish he would, because he’s a very fine guy.”

Despite his frustrations, the former Labour leader defended Starmer’s record in government. “He hasn’t screwed it up, and he’s done a hell of a lot of good things that have largely gone unnoticed,” Kinnock said. Those achievements, he argued, had been overshadowed by “absurd cock-ups” such as the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance — a decision he described as “utterly unnecessary and, politically, seriously bruising”.

Other senior Labour figures have lambasted Starmer’s record in government, including former health secretary Wes Streeting, who resigned last month after citing Starmer’s lack of “vision” for the country. He has also expressed his intent to challenge for the party leadership.

It’s not the first time that Kinnock has expressed concern about this Labour government. In July 2025, he stated that the party was “bogged down by their own imposed limitations”, and suffered from a “lack of narrative”. In October, he said that Starmer had months, not years, to turn around the party’s fortunes, adding that he had “reservations about the capability” of some of the PM’s closest aides in Downing Street.

Pressure on Starmer and the Labour government has intensified in recent months. The party continues to trail Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in national polling and lost more than 1,400 council seats in May’s local elections. According to Electoral Calculus, Reform is currently polling at around 27%, compared with Labour’s 18.8%.

Kinnock criticized both Farage and Restore Britain’s Rupert Lowe, suggesting that neither was “committed to the thoroughness and integrity of representation that I think should be basic credentials of democratic politicians, whatever their political branding”.

He also accused Reform of offering “superficial, uncosted promises” based on a simple calculation of “what would you like us to say? Fine, we’ll say that”. He added: “That’s the nature of populism.” Such movements, Kinnock claimed, were capitalizing on a widespread sense of alienation, allowing “a Right-wing bunch of ex-public schoolboys” to present themselves as “proletarian plutocrats”.

Kinnock argued that populist movements thrive by channeling public frustration into resentment against perceived outsiders. “Of course, they don’t stop at generating economic and cultural grievance,” he said. “They cannot resist the temptation not only of sowing and harvesting that grievance, but of finding someone to blame. Classically, the blame is put upon others — Muslims, Jews, black people, white people, the working class, middle-class intellectuals.”

Despite Labour’s dire polling and Reform’s ascent, Kinnock insisted that Starmer still has time to regain the initiative. “It’s not too late,” he said. “It could be done this weekend by Keir, who is a man of high intelligence, rooted principles and a renowned advocate.”