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Sue Gray has revealed the hollowness of the Starmer project

Ruthless Starmer strikes again. Credit: Getty

October 7, 2024 - 7:00am

On his inauguration in the spring of 1933 the incoming president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, inherited a country beset by economic and social disintegration. Homebuilding had fallen by 80% in the previous three years; 9,000 banks had collapsed since 1929; the average household had seen its income fall by almost half over the same period.

Roosevelt’s response was decisive. On entering the Oval Office he summoned a special session of Congress that would last three months. In the period that followed, his administration passed 15 bills designed to leave the Great Depression behind. Indeed, it is from this furious moment in American history that the concept of the “first 100 days” was born.

Britain’s problems in 2024 are significant, but they are not those of Thirties America. Yet the first 100 days of Keir Starmer’s premiership have been the opposite of what one might have expected. Consider how the PM chose to take the winter fuel allowance from millions while seeing no issue with accepting £32,000 of free suits. Or how he attended concerts and football matches gratis while saying the country should prepare for hardship. Then there’s the matter of political sequencing: having made energy bills more expensive for cash-strapped pensioners, the PM now wants a debate around assisted dying. Had Starmer been in FDR’s shoes, one suspects he would have been accepting free Corvettes and Brooks Brothers ties rather than knocking heads together.

The problem with death spirals is you never know when you’ve hit the bottom. Now, with a week before that Rooseveltian milestone is reached, Sue Gray — Starmer’s Chief of Staff — has resigned.

This was supposedly unthinkable as recently as a fortnight ago, when Angela Rayner told the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg that Gray would “absolutely” be in her job by Christmas. But while Rayner made those public assurances, at Labour’s party conference it was being whispered that Gray was on borrowed time. The problem, as I was repeatedly told, was that the political instincts of Gray and Morgan McSweeney — who now replaces her as Starmer’s chief of staff — not only diverged but were in polar opposition.

For McSweeney the point of politics is to be elected, and once elected to campaign for re-election. For Gray, by contrast, it is the boring bit bolted on to government. Starmer hoped he could benefit from both figures. But instead their competing beliefs and vision — with McSweeney allegedly behind the briefings against Gray — created a black hole at the heart of Number 10. While McSweeney supposedly viewed himself as being more in touch with those voters Labour needs to win, Gray was part of the blob, too distracted by identity politics and the latest liberal fad.

McSweeney’s accomplishments are objectively impressive: forming Labour Together, undermining the Corbyn leadership, taking Starmer first to the top of his party and then into government. Still, it’s unclear how all of that makes him qualified to lead the office of a prime minister pledging “national renewal”.

Following McSweeney’s ascendancy, policy will now come second to communications, with the demands of the latter shaping the former. As with Tony Blair, “good policy” will quickly become whatever lands well with the press rather than what solves long-term problems. That is why, alongside Gray’s resignation, Starmer’s team now includes a new head of strategic communications, James Lyons. His previous job was with Tik Tok, where he worked to finesse the company’s fragile image in Europe while Washington touted a ban. The position certainly makes sense: since 4 July the government has had no broader vision regarding how to convey its message. Whether one person can change that remains to be seen.

One could argue that Starmer wielding the knife against Gray is a testament to his ruthlessness. To an extent that is true. But it is a different kind of ruthlessness to either Margaret Thatcher or Blair, both of whom had a strong idea of who “their” people were, and who were possessed by a sense of mission embedded within a broader movement to which they were loyal. There is, after all, no Thatcher without Keith Joseph or Blair without Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould.

Starmer, by contrast, is powered by personal career progression and status. In the absence of a vision for Britain, a broader ideology, or a wider movement behind him, such “ruthlessness” will make an already disliked prime minister reviled. Ruthlessness at the service of self-interest is, after all, nothing more than avarice.

Today’s changes could be the start of a successful reboot, as happened after the debacle of Hartlepool and the near-miss of Batley and Spen in 2021. More likely, though, is that the government continues to struggle while it has no core policy agenda and no cadre of activists and thought-leaders.

The main problem for Starmer was — and remains — a lack of solutions capable of answering those problems facing the UK. He is a good autopilot politician, but the time for those is over. Britain might not be reliving the torpor of the Thirties, but it could certainly do with an FDR.


Aaron Bastani is the co-founder of Novara Media, and the author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism. 

AaronBastani

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Geoff W
Geoff W
1 month ago

“The problem with death spirals is you never know when you’ve hit the bottom.”
You know you’ve hit the bottom of a death spiral when you, like, you know, die.

Pedro Livreiro
Pedro Livreiro
1 month ago

For years – arguably since Thatcher´s time – Britain has lacked a leader of stature; an FDR or Churchill. This author notes that lacuna in the centre of British politics, but does nothing to help fill it.

William Amos
William Amos
1 month ago
Reply to  Pedro Livreiro

I fear the Managerial State and Mass Democracy simply do not allow for the existence the sort of figure you describe.
Both Churchill and FDR were deeply patrician figures, drawn from the reserves of an earlier, Timocratic, mixed-constitutional polity which which took as its latent model the human family guided by the Muse of history and which therefore reflected the complexities of the human condition – for better and for worse.
The key benchmarks, I am convinced, would be the Seventeenth Amendment of 1913 in the United States and the Parliament Act of 1911 in the UK. Both of which altered the political economy of the respective states in ways which are only now showing their final fruits.
Both pretended to remove the last effective check to the sovereign ‘popular will’ – but we now see they were both a coup by the fledgling permanent beauraucracy. Once the ‘old guard’ had been seen off, they could turn their attention to finessing that same ‘popular will’.
And so we see that the political culture that has succeeded that era – as the experiment with Mass Democracy has deepened its hold on the common culture and, through Mrs Thatchers unwitting connivance, allied itself to consumerism – simply does not allow or permit of that sort of ‘character formation’ which makes for great leaders.
Indeed, we see the faded remnant of such a mixed constitution being trod under foot with the ejection of the last true Peers from the House of Lords.
And so the helm of this great Kingdom is fitfully grasped only by those who most venally and dextrously respond to the caprice of the secretariat, as masqued as ‘the will of the people’
This common body, like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, to rot itself with motion”

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 month ago

“Starmer, by contrast, is powered by personal career progression and status.” Which was why he saw Gray as a natural ally. Starmer represents a society where achievement is unimportant buy saying the correct things is all important.
From what I have read about McSweeney, I would rather have him in a position of influence than Gray. Don’t judge what someone will do in power on what they have done in opposition.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 month ago

The truth is that neither faction in a party that exists largely to promote the vested interests of the public sector can begin to fix the country’s problems because those interests have become too powerful. It’s going to take someone with the cojones at least to ditch the BBC licence fee and face down the state and corporate bureaucracy.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 month ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Spot on

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

I’m not sure this country’s biggest problem is that too little of its media is controlled by rich people.
Murdoch, The Barclays, Lord Rothermere, Richard Desmond, <cough> Paul Marshall, Evgeny Lebedev. These individuals are not distinguished by their aloofness from politics and their conspicuous lack of axes to grind.
You’re welcome to think the BBC is ghastly – bashing it is one of the nation’s favourite pastimes – and if you really hate the Guardian you’re in luck because it seems the Observer might be up for sale – so now’s your chance.
But please explain how selling either of them off would improve the national conversation.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

Starmer appears uninterested in policy and his red boxes are apparently empty of policy papers, so coupled with McSweeney’s electoral obsession, it does not augur well for policy formulation and progression to solve the UKs deep-seated problems.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago

Leaving aside the main thrust of the article and going with the introductory two paragraphs, is anyone else a little irritated how easily these historical narratives take hold and become unchallenged (indeed almost beyond challenge) ?
Any actual study shows that the governments of FDR (1933-44) and Attlee (1945-51) had a far more mixed legacy than these lazy narratives suggest. And that many of the policies that are attributed to them had already started before they took over (increased public works under Hoover in the US, foundations of the UK welfare state pre-date 1945). They also ignore the huge problems rthat some of these policies created (and which we still seem unable to resolve even today).
As for the article, I remain baffled by Bastani’s insistence that the government has no policy agenda and Starmer is a mere careerist who believes nothing. There’s plenty of evidence that his is – and always has been – a committed socialist. I guess he’s just not enough of a socialist for Bastani, so in true left wing factionalist custom, he must be denounced.

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

Anything as big and complicated as a government is going to have a mixed legacy. Anything as big as a welfare state is going to have antecedents.
As to your insistance that Starmer is a committed socialist. What is actually your “plenty of evidence”? His predecessor as Labour leader was to his left and Starmer not only worked to get rid of him but systematically purged the party (quite recenty the largest in Europe) of about a third of its memebership. And it was not the centrist moderates he was getting rid of.
He ran for leader asserting that the 2017 manifesto (which got more votes than Starmer did in 2024 remember) was his blueprint and commited to 10 principles. He then ditched or watered down every single principle on the list.
He is not committed to state ownership – despite taking parts of the railways back into state management, he has refused to touch the Train Owning Companies which are one of the worst bits of the system and he actively rejects any pressure to re-nationalise the utilities despite their complete and utter failure.
Moreover, such plans as he seems to have to renew national infrastructure, appear to involve allowing private sector entities (including BlackRock etc) to construct and own it in exchange for long-term payments from the state. That is is certainly reminiscent of Blair’s love affair with PFI, but, whatever else it may be, it is not socialist.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  George Venning

You are concentrating on what he’s actually saying today (and assuming that reflects where he really believes). I’m more interested in his actual views and instincts. The fact that he is only moving relatively slowly in some of these areas (nationalising energy and utilities and instituting price controls) doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in these things. GB Energy is being created – though no one really knows quite why this is needed and what its function should be. “Social tariffs” for utilties are likely on they way – that’s a form of price fixing where some of us get to subsidise others.
Then take education. As someone noted last week, Labour believes it is bad for people to pay for school education, but good if they pay for university education. The current policy and implementation are woefully confused and contradictory. But the underlying hatred of private provision is clear.
There seems to have been some airbrushing to hide Starmer early political beliefs, but this is a man who defined himself as a socialist and wrote “Karl Marx was right”.
And unlike your claim, he actively supported and endorsed Jeremy Corbyn in not just one, but two general elections. While those with more principles and courage resigned and fought.

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

“I’m not interested in what he’s doing and saying because I’m more interested in the real beliefs he’s hiding” is a strange way to assess a politician. Applied to, say Kemi Badenoch, we could go pretty much anywhere with that attitude.
On nationalisation, Starmer is behind the public which has long been open to the possibility of re-nationlising both rail and utilities.
On education the present situation is a muddle. But Starmer hasn’t done anything yet, except add VAT to private school fees, which makes them more expensive and thus makes the social exclusivity – the bit to which socialists object – worse.
And as to Starmer supporting Corbyn through two elections. Sure, if you like. But then explain the fact that he was so close to McSweeney’s Labour Together group, which is now admitted to have essentially tried to lose elections under Corbyn.
You might also note that it was Starmer who persuaded Corbyn to abandon its ambiguity on Brexit (quite an important policy for a party whose voters were pretty split on the subject) in favour of a second referendum. That policy, along with the antiSemitism allegations was a major cause of the wipeout in 2019.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  George Venning

You make it sound as though Starmer’s opposition to Brexit was all part of a cunning plan to make sure that Corbyn lost the 2019 election !
As mathematicans sometimes say, “it’s certainly a theory”.

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

Ha! Fair comment.
I think it’s fair to say that Starmer’s faction did not want to win in 2019 with Corbyn at the helm. Read the Guardian piece I linked elsewhere, which is pretty frank about that. There was, in that sense, a plot.
However, I don’t think that the second referendum was part of that plot. I think that was a genuinely held belief which arose from a failure of the membership (and a large part of the PLP) to perceive just how badly, the 30% of Labour voters who voted for Brexit would take that. That bit was incompetence rather than malice I think.
And I say that as someone who would have been supportive of a 2nd referendum. I thought it was the right choice for the country but it was electoral arsenic.
On the other hand, I don’t know that the policy of ambiguity could have been carried into 2019 without alienating the 70% of Labour voters who voted remain.

John Dewhirst
John Dewhirst
1 month ago
Reply to  George Venning

Starmer’s support for VAT on private education can likely also be interpreted as token red meat to keep the left happy. Starmer knows that his biggest and most effective opposition is within his party.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 month ago
Reply to  George Venning

Starmer hasn’t “systematically purged the party” of the far Left. He’s just got rid of some of the people who didn’t support him because he was (and is) weak and inept. The far Left remains strong: Abbott, Butler, Sultana, Lewis, McDonnell (he’ll get the whip back soon enough), Siddiq, Allin-Khan …

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

FDR is lucky nazi germany showed up.

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago

I don’t understand the reverence for McSweeney. His reputation is that of electoral savant – a man acutely sensitive to what will land well with the British public.
But the complaint against Labour at the moment is precisely that it has no such vision and has given the public no reason to love it.
And, by the way, what kind of political strategist, would allow a leader who is running on “a bit dull but at least he’s honest” to accept gifts amounting to £30k in clothes. How can it possibly cost £30k to upgrade a barrister’s wardrobe to “man of the people”?
I concede that it takes a certain kind of genius to engineer a vast electoral majority out of barely a third of the votes cast. But that majority is tissue thin – relying as it does on both a huge swathe of Tory voters voting for Reform and 50% of would be greens voting tactically.
If Starmer wants a second term, he won’t be able to rely upon the “Tories out” vote that was the whole of his campaign last time and, if he continues his reflexive repudiation of everything to his left, who on Earth will vote for him?

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  George Venning

You’re assuming that McSweeney is actually a Starmer supporter ! My reading of this is that McSweeney likely despises Starmer and people like him (so most current Labour MPs) and has his own agenda.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

Love to know what his agenda might consist of (except ridding the party of any vestige of real socialism…)

William Cameron
William Cameron
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

I should ask Mr Varadkar

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

div > p > a”>Quite the reverse.
McSweeney founded a grouping on the right of the party, Labour Together, whose objective was to take Labour back after its capture by the left. That grouping spent a fair bit of time casting about for a figurehead before settling upon Starmer.
Starmer is not a covert socialist who seized upon McSweeney as an effective operator in spite of their philosophical differences.
McSweeney chose Starmer as the best leadership candidate to take forward his vision for the party.

Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith
1 month ago
Reply to  George Venning

“McSweeney chose Starmer as the best leadership candidate.”
That probably tells us all we need to know about McSweeneys vision and judgement.

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Adrian Smith

No kidding

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago
Reply to  Adrian Smith

Precisely my point. You admit that if anyone’s actually in charge (still a rather lage “if” for me), it’s McSweeney.
Who chose the best leadership candidate *for now*.
[sorry, that was mainly a reply to George V]

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  Peter B

But, given that McSweeney, hates Corbyn and Corbynism and indeed rose to prominence on the back of his opposition to the left wing of the party, why would he chose a closet socialist as his standard bearer?
Isn’t it just simpler to start from the premise that Starmer’s true beliefs are on the right flank of the Labour party – the bit that overlaps with the left flank of the Tories – but that he occasionally has to do things at the behest of those to his left in order to prevent the party from fracturing further.
Doesn’t that fit the available facts?
Wouldn’t that explan why he ran for the leadership on continuity Corbynism and then abandoned every single plank of it? He ran left because he could not have won the leadership election without doing so. And then he dropped avery one of his pledges before the general election because he did not wish to fulfil them in power.
Your version is, I think the mirror image of this – that Starmer is Corbynite who tricked McSweeney into backing him. He then revealed his true colours to the membership for the leadership election without alienating McSweeney and Labour Together. He then tactically abandoned that leadership platform and purged the party of leftwing candidates and members (his true but unwitting allies) in the hope of winning the election but still plans to enact a secret socialist agenda with the support of the very right wingers he was forced to empower in order to get elected.
We agree on only one thing, Starmer is not an honest politician. We disagree about whom he is deceiving.
And I suppose it’s possible you’re right but isn’t my version simpler?

William Cameron
William Cameron
1 month ago

“McSweeney’s accomplishments are objectively impressive: ”
Are they ? Labour managed around 20% of the electorate- fewer than Corbyn.
Labour only won because tory voters didnt vote.

David Lindsay
David Lindsay
1 month ago

Keir Starmer does not have a coherent political philosophy, and no one develops one of those in his sixties. He was pointedly offered neither a peerage, nor a judgeship, nor a Vice-Chancellorship, nor a quango position, when he was pointedly not invited to apply for a second term as Director of Public Prosecutions, so he decided to become Prime Minister instead. He attached himself to the right wing of the Labour Party, which is undeniably the most ruthless faction in British politics. Up to now, that has worked out for him. But he is not of the Labour Right. He is barely even of the Labour Party. He is utterly dependent on people who will destroy him as soon as they have tired of him and were determined to install one of their own. It is still just about too early to say, but that will presumably be Wes Streeting.

George Venning
George Venning
1 month ago
Reply to  David Lindsay

He was pointedly offered neither a peerage, nor a judgeship, nor a Vice-Chancellorship, nor a quango position, when he was pointedly not invited to apply for a second term as Director of Public Prosecutions

I had not thought about that. It’s a good point.

Ash Sangamneheri
Ash Sangamneheri
1 month ago

How long before a change of leadership?

John Dewhirst
John Dewhirst
1 month ago

Starmer lacks a vision and this has already become self-evident. Crucially however the man is not an inspirational leader and no amount of repositioning or spin is going to alter that fact. Starmer will likely succumb to factional infighting within the Labour Party to be replaced by what? It is not only the hollowness of Starmer that is on display as the lack of talent within his government. In turn the only argument in favour of Starmer is the prospect of Angela Rayner taking the helm. After only three months this is becoming a nightmare. We are indeed led by donkeys.