Starmer’s bungled reset is fitting way to end 2024

LONDON — It was supposed to be the moment Keir Starmer corrected months of drift with a reset that would finally set a clear course of direction for his newish government.

Instead, the headlines that followed his “reset” speech on Dec. 5 served only to reinforce the view of his harshest critics: that he is an unimaginative technocrat with no grand vision for the country.

After his efforts flopped with critics and voters alike, the U.K. PM was forced into days of damage control — to little avail. Polling from Ipsos, gathered the week before his speech, showed Starmer is the most unpopular prime minister after five months in office since the firm began conducting approval ratings in 1979.

Reflecting on the early months of this government, a Labour minister — like others in this article, granted anonymity to speak freely — scored it “at best a medium,” adding this was perhaps understandable given “there are so many domestic and foreign crises all at the same time.”

A second minister complained politicians were “so over-exposed now with the current media climate” that voters “soon become sick of governments and quickly want change.”

“I think people wish they could just press a button and change ministers,” they added.

Already beset by internal No. 10 divisions, a rolling scandal over freebies, worsening economic indicators and public backlash over £40 billion in tax hikes, the prime minister’s big “plan for change” speech this month was supposed to mark a fresh start, drawing a line under a bumpy few first months in power.

Instead, what Starmer announced was “six milestones” for the country to judge his government on by the next election — which need not be held until summer 2029.

What’s the plan?

The speech referenced policy outcome goals, including the improvement of living standards in every part of the U.K. and bringing hospital waiting lists down to target levels.

The problem was that these milestones followed hard on the footsteps of a series of very similar-sounding sets of Labour targets already offered up by Starmer over the past two years.

In a bid to set a governing vision, he has now outlined two “priorities,” three “pillars of growth,” six “first steps,” six “milestones” and seven “foundations” — the only thing missing is a partridge in a pear tree, critics said of the ever expanding layers of slogans and targets Starmer has wrapped around his young government.

The saga was emblematic of a government pushed in different directions by Cabinet ministers and as a result failing to resonate with the public.

One Starmer-supporting Labour MP said the fault lay with the PM’s seeming inability to communicate a clear and concise vision for the country.

“No one is asking Keir to be [former Prime Minister] Tony Blair — he’s his own man,” they said. “But he could learn an awful lot from Tony’s ability to tell the story about where we’re going, and why, the perils and pitfalls we face along the way and how we’re going to triumph come what may.”

A second Labour MP described the prime minister’s approach to governing as painstaking — and sometimes painfully slow.

“He generally gets to the right decision, but it takes him a while to get there,” they said.

Fighting words

Along with confusion over what is a mission and what is a milestone, Starmer’s big reset was overshadowed by a full-blooded attack on the civil service, the unelected and politically neutral officials who take direction from politicians, and gripes about declining public sector productivity.

“Too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline,” he said.

The unexpectedly inflammatory language, redolent of similar attacks by previous British governments from the rival Conservative party, was a clear sign of the prime minister’s frustration with the civil service machine since entering government.

It’s a sentiment shared by many within this new government, including members of the Cabinet.

One anecdote doing the rounds among Starmer’s top ministers is about how Blair, Labour’s most electorally successful prime minister, would often describe the pathologically sclerotic civil service.

If postwar Prime Minister Clement Attlee came back to the streets of modern day Westminster he would be absolutely astonished by all the cars and modern technology — but then he would step into any government department in Whitehall and feel right at home, the punchline goes.

One Labour government aide said their experience working with the civil service “has been positive,” but that this was not the norm across Whitehall for incoming political appointees.

A bureaucracy that stifles

“I do think in other departments there have been very valid complaints about slow decision making and stifling bureaucracy,” the aide said.

The first minister quoted in this piece said the previous Conservative government “neglected the civil service machinery,” but also said Whitehall mandarins essentially needed to suck it up.

“They’re all grownups, they need to have clear direction in a relatively pointy way. I think they can take it,” they said.

However, the language used by Starmer in public to describe his frustrations was pilloried by former Cabinet ministers from Blair and Gordon Brown’s Labour governments of 1997 to 2010.

One told POLITICO the prime minister’s attacks “were ridiculous” and counter-productive.

“Why take a pot shot at them like that? It’s not going to work at all. It’s very easy to criticize the civil service, but the question should then should be for Starmer — ‘What are you going to do about it?’” 

A mistake

A second former Labour cabinet minister said Starmer’s attack on the civil service “was a mistake.”

“The civil service does need change … but you have to work within the machine to fix it and together with the Cabinet secretary,” they said.

Labour grandee Ed Balls said on his “Political Currency” podcast that Starmer has “to stop blaming other people and get on and deliver” and that “it’s Downing Street which hasn’t been doing well enough in the last few months.”

This backlash, which included pointed criticism by public sector unions, prompted Starmer to write a letter to civil servants a few days after his speech to say they were “admired across the world.”

One Labour aide admitted to POLITICO that it had been a mistake to attack civil servants in such a high-profile manner and that damage limitation was required.

Despite this, Downing Street is refusing to acknowledge there had been a row back in the prime minister’s approach.

One senior government aide said Starmer had “been entirely consistent in what he’s been saying and in identifying the challenges faced by government, but he also sees the civil service as a part of the solution as well.”

The decision to go after Whitehall leaders so directly has already seen a backlash from civil servants, who say it shows the prime minister has no grip on the government’s direction.

One told POLITICO that the political operation in No. 10 was “chaotic” and “performing worse than any other government of the past decade.”

A second accused Starmer’s team of “micromanaging” everything that other departments do to “a very unhelpful degree.”

‘Budget paralysis: The sequel’

Looking ahead to 2025, Downing Street now wants to funnel its key announcements through the six milestones to show the government is focused on voters’ priorities.

First among them is trying to improve living standards and fix Britain’s underperforming health service, with YouGov opinion polls showing these are the public’s two biggest worries.

However, there are some concerns about the long gap between January and the announcement of the government’s spending review in June, which will set out its spending plans until at least 2028.

There has been speculation that such a long gap will create a vacuum, as ministers are forced to bat away endless press questions about future spending decisions.

One senior civil servant said the government was setting itself up for “budget paralysis: the sequel” by delaying the major departmental spending review until June.

They said there had been an “unbelievable amount of effort and angst over setting one year’s spending [in the budget], and now another six months to set the actual forward programme.”

That may well mean that the first six months of 2025 could look a lot like the last few months of 2024.