The honeymoon is well and truly over for Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s newly elected Labour Prime Minister who finds himself at the centre of a scandal involving designer clothes and spectacles. Since their huge victory over the Tories in July, it is rather quite spectacular how Labour have frittered away their gains in just a few short months.
A new poll even finds Starmer’s popularity ratings right now are even less than Rishi Sunak’s when he was in the top job.
Last week, Labour MP Rosie Duffield quit the party and wrote a scathing resignation letter in which she said, among other things, “the sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.” She later told the BBC that Starmer’s team cares “more about greed and power than making a difference”.
It is a terrible look for the Prime Minister who came in on the promise of change, of ending the cronyism of the Tory government. Merely 3 months later, he is battling a huge PR crisis over accepting freebies going into thousands of pounds including designer clothes, glasses, rugby matches and concert tickets. This includes Sarmer himself, his wife and some of his senior colleagues.
It turns out Starmer alone accepted more than 107,000 GBP worth of freebies from donors, more than any other MP since 2019. What makes it worse is that the biggest donor, Lord Waheed Alli, also helped advise Starmer’s chief of staff on possible government appointments. He also got a temporary Downing Street pass, despite holding no formal government role. If this isn’t a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.
Plummeted ratings
I do find it particularly surprising that the Prime Minister can’t even pay for his own spectacles. Taking those as a donation amounting to over 2,000 GBP is really an embarrassment. Starmer has now said he will no longer accept clothing donations. Too late. The damage is done.
A new poll for the Observer shows that Keir Starmer’s personal ratings have plummeted to their lowest ever level, well below those of Rishi Sunak.
Ahead of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool in late September, Starmer’s ratings had collapsed 45 points since July to -26. This has now dropped another 4 points to -30. Nearly 45% of Britons have a more negative view of Starmer and Labour since they came into office.
The poll further shows that only 27% of people think the Labour government so far been a success and a third of those who voted for Labour believe the government has not been a success in its opening two months.
A “hard path”
The conference was supposed to have been a celebration of Labour’s landslide July win, returning to power after 14 long years. Instead, there was gloom as opinion polls showed a growing impatience and anger with the new government.
Several Labour leaders are said to be exasperated with how the Prime Minister’s team has responded to the controversy and the murmurs of discontent have slowly simmered to the surface.
The freebie scandal is one part of the problem. Labour is also facing a backlash over decisions like a winter fuel allowance cut for millions of pensioners, which Starmer has justified as a “hard path” needed for the country right now.
The Tories have been quick to criticise Starmer’s “hypocrisy” given that he once attacked the Tories for being out of touch with the financial struggles of ordinary folks. He came to power promising change, but now more and more Britons are asking if Starmer’s message of change was just rhetoric.
Labour needs to change the narrative quickly and get down to serious governance.
