Keir Starmer’s aides insist that 2026 is the year his fortunes will turn around, but his fate is no longer in his own hands. The Prime Minister’s reputation is now so low that crowds show their fury at public events he isn’t even attending. At the Royal Variety Performance, the audience booed the mere mention of his name as a comedian embarked on an impersonation of the PM. During the World Darts Championship, fans broke out into chants of “Keir Starmer’s a w*****”, something football fans started earlier in the year.
The Prime Minister’s Cabinet is in open revolt and those intent on replacing him are circling, waiting for their moment. For most of the country – a staggering 72% of voters view him unfavourably – Starmer’s political demise this year would be the fresh start the nation needs. But the contenders to replace him do little to instil any sense of new year hope and optimism. Wes Streeting showed how little authority his boss now has with an interview that can only be interpreted as a pitch for the top job, the second in the space of a month. The Health Secretary is unsubtle, calling for Britain to rejoin the EU’s customs union, something Starmer has ruled out twice in the past month.
Ranging far off his beat, Streeting flashed some ankle at Labour members who desperately want to hitch the UK back up to Brussels. Pictured gazing beatifically into the middle distance as he walked through Hainault Forest, he coyly claimed: “I’m diplomatically ducking the question. This is not a pitch or a job application.”
Just a few weeks earlier, he told the New Statesman he was frustrated with how Starmer had been presenting his administration as a “maintenance department for the country”. But surely the man who has told us the winter flu crisis will be so bad that it is “probably the worst pressure the NHS has faced since Covid” should be focusing on that instead of cosy interviews setting out his stall? Let’s not forget that we have just endured the 14th round of strikes by junior doctors and more are threatened.
Streeting settled quickly with the BMA after the general election, awarding a 29% pay hike without securing any changes in working practices in return. Unsurprisingly, the radical union spotted a naive negotiator and is now back for another 26%.
Meanwhile, in Manchester, Andy Burnham is scrambling around trying to find a safe Labour seat (good luck with that one) so he can parachute back into Parliament to save the day. The city’s mayor has twice stood for the Labour leadership but believes it’s third time lucky. If you are fed up with Starmer’s flip flopping then brace yourselves if Burnham wins.
The former health secretary blows with the wind, one minute a Blairite, the next a hero of the Left. He began work as a parliamentary researcher at 24, became an MP, reached the Cabinet and quit in 2017, insisting he hates Westminster despite nearly a quarter of a century in it.
His love of Armani suits – he used to buy two a year – has been quietly forgotten after a make-under that means he seemingly only wears cagoules in a role as “King of the North”. As an MP, Burnham was ridiculed after insisting Labour “simply cannot abstain” in its opposition to the Tory government’s welfare reforms – minutes after abstaining in a vote on the same measures.
He also criticised those who called for a second Brexit referendum, then backed down when the unions got involved. Earlier this year, a Labour source said: “He’s agreed with so many different views, he’s forgotten his own mind.”
Hovering in the background is Angela Rayner, who is writing a memoir that her publisher says will allow “her authenticity to shine through – and an empowering vision for a fairer, kinder society that will enable everyone to flourish”. Rayner has more time than she used to after a return to the backbenches following an accidental spot of redistribution of wealth as she failed to hand over enough cash to the taxman.
Too late, sadly, to stop the damage caused by her radical workers’ rights reforms that will cripple small businesses. Red Ed Miliband insists he does not want another crack at being Labour leader, but “friends” have let it be known he wants to be the country’s next Chancellor. As if the country hasn’t suffered enough! Whatever the new year brings politically, strap in because it is going to be a bumpy ride.
