To analyse. Football lovers, the British have a footballing metaphor for almost any situation. Like this one : ” To miss an open goal (missing a golden opportunity), very present in the writings of journalists and political scientists to describe the weaknesses of the Labor Party and its leader, Keir Starmer. After twelve continuous years in power, the Tories are at their wit’s end: Prime Minister Boris Johnson is leaving Downing Street ingloriously, driven to resign by the ‘Partygate’ scandal. Liz Truss, who should replace him on Monday, September 5, is an ideologue of free trade and at least of the state. It swears only by tax cuts and seems ill-equipped to face the looming economic and social crisis and to preside over the destinies of a country whose infrastructures and public services have been weakened by a decade of under-investment and deregulations.
However, if the British left party has dominated the Tories by around ten points in the polls since the start of 2022, Mr. Starmer is unable to take full advantage of it: his popularity is not taking off. Only 27% of Britons believe, according to a poll, that this 60-year-old former attorney general “does well” and 53% believe that its balance sheet is not good.
Mr Starmer took over as leader of the party in April 2020 to replace far-left idol Jeremy Corbyn pushed to the start following Labour’s failure in the 2019 election. More than two years later, he still does not appear as ” prime minister in waiting (Prime Minister-in-waiting). The comparison with Tony Blair is striking. In 1997, the victory of the sprightly young leader and his movement transformed into a centrist force, the “New Labour”, had been in doubt for months against a government of John Major undermined by scandals.
Extreme caution
This freshness and dynamism are lacking in Mr. Starmer. In question, his weak charisma and his extreme caution. “Even in a parliamentary system, underlines Steven Fielding, historian specializing in Labor at the University of Nottingham, Keir Starmer is an old-fashioned politician. He would prefer to talk only about ideas rather than his family for example. Tony Blair was a real showman, he enjoyed appearing in public. As a result, Mr. Starmer, a lawyer by training like Blair, passes for a representative of the elites, while his father was a worker and his mother a nurse. »
Other left-wing personalities take the spotlight much better: the former Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example. Always very active, he was the first in August to react to the prospect of a maddening increase in British household energy bills (they will rise by an annual average of 1,971 pounds sterling [2 279 €] to £3,549 in October). Many ambitious people also gravitate around Mr. Starmer: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London or Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, who does not miss an opportunity to signal his availability. Not to mention the young and brilliant members of his shadow cabinet: Lisa Nandy in housing, Wes Streeting in health or his assistant Angela Rayner, a very outspoken ex-unionist.
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