Keir Starmer’s shortcomings are on full display as his party fails to lead a successful attack against a government at one of their weakest times.
The government has performed countless U-turns and failures: Christmas, exam catastrophes, 100,000 deaths, to name a few. So why can’t labour get ahead in the polls?
Recent polls puts the Westminster voting intention at 42% for Conservatives and 38% for Labour. The government took a poll dip in August, they seem to have bounced back in pretty remarkable form, currently even increasing their lead.
It is undoubtedly a smart tactic to avoid partisan politics during a national crisis and focus more on saving lives than scoring political points. Yet Starmer must find a balance between holding the government to account for their failures, without seeming to sound too eager to capitalise on the failure.
Starmer’s solutions or policy initiatives are either coming too subtly or too late. Starmer only demanded a national lockdown once rumours were already circulating of one, and even then this was only hours before the press conference where announced tightened restricts and exam cancellations. Being caught out at the PMQs for lying over the EU’s medical regulatory body won’t have helped him either.
Soon, Starmer will need his own narrative - not just an anti-government one. Criticism of government incompetence is not enough alone to win an election, as has been proven repeatedly. Johnson is nothing if not resilient and determined, and these circumstances will not be as much of a campaign resource once it is over, even more of a reason for Starmer to demonstrate his own policies now. Starmer has to show his strengths as a party leader now, because there’s unlikely to be such an opportunity again.
Written by Jessica Craighill
Artwork by Zara Masood
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