Keir Starmer is a dead man walking before even getting into his stride as prime minister

“That’s life!
That’s what all the people say
You’re riding high in April, shot down in May…”

Frank Sinatra might well have been singing about Keir Starmer in the song That’s Life…just push the lyric forward a few months.

Labour was riding high in July 2024 with that extraordinary election victory, only to be shot down by October.  

Shot in the foot might be a more appropriate metaphor. Starmer’s body politic is already riddled with self-inflicted wounds.  

From Waspi women to winter fuel, from freebies to free speech, the rapid fire of political ineptitude has been gory in the extreme. Critics used to say he was an empty suit when he was leader of the opposition. Now he’s more of a dead man walking, before even getting into his stride as prime minister.

Can the PM change his tune and get back on top in June, to reprise Sinatra’s song? The mood music isn’t good. He was forced into an embarrassing relaunch in December which failed to erase the negative impact of Rachel Reeves’ budget the previous month.

How can you have a “mission for growth” which hits the bottom line of employers, including small and medium-sized businesses, by raising their National Insurance bill? 

This was best expressed to me by an entrepreneur at a pre-Christmas party in one of the leafier suburbs of Glasgow’s Southside. He has built up a food manufacturing business from scratch, operating in socially deprived areas of the city. He happily pays above the real living wage and is proud of his record as a decent employer with a social conscience.The budget will take £75,000 a year out of his small business. He can only recoup that by passing the costs on to consumers, raising the price of food. 

This man was a lifelong Labour voter, resisting all the enticements of the SNP even in the heady post-referendum years. He did not support independence but, like many from his west of Scotland background, nursed a cultural antipathy to the Conservatives despite his comfortable life.

As a young man, he was a great supporter of the Blair/Brown government and looked forward to Cool Britannia, The Sequel. “I will never vote Labour again,” he told me. His fury almost fused the fairy lights.

It’s Anas Sarwar I feel sorry for. He really was riding high, during the SNP’s troubled times. Then came the shock decision to cut winter fuel allowance for most pensioners – a policy with a disproportionately damaging effect in chilly Scotland. 

History tells us that any Westminster measure which hits Scotland harder will damage support for the Union as well as the UK Government. Rachel Reeves is too young to remember the poll tax. 

Meanwhile, wily John Swinney will take her extra dosh and use it to hammer Labour by reversing unpopular policies like the two-child benefit cap and winter fuel cuts in time for the 2026 election.

Now poor Anas is neck-and-neck with Nigel Farage, according to a poll which put Labour and Reform UK on 17 per cent in Scotland, compared to the SNP’s 32 per cent.

Things can only get better for Farage, who emerged last week as the unlikely voice of anti-fascism. He was attacked by his one-time pal Elon Musk, who has jilted him for imprisoned thug Tommy Robinson. 

When the Reform UK leader refused to play along with the world’s richest man, saying Robinson was not welcome in his party, he made himself look principled and rather mainstream. All the better to woo voters angry that Labour has failed to deliver change. 
Events like Musk’s disruption could not be predicted. But well-prepared governments can weather unexpected storms.

Labour is sinking because it lacks political ballast. If you want to energise your base and get a second term, you must reassure voters they made the correct decision in switching to you.
It’s the ABC of political strategy. Sometimes called the ‘First 100 Days Framework’, it has been successfully employed by incoming administrations since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He launched his historic New Deal in 1933 in the wake of America’s Great Depression, introducing 15 bills to combat mass unemployment.

Barack Obama passed a similar economic stimulus package in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The Blair and Brown government of 1997 also hit the ground at supersonic speed. Within days, the Bank of England was made independent, legislation was introduced to create parliaments for Scotland and Wales, and the peace process in Northern Ireland was accelerated. 

They were following a playbook refined by subsequent generations of political strategists. 
It requires new governments to implement a co-ordinated media narrative that communicates competence and energy. There should be a focus on a few symbolic, positive policies that shout: “We do things differently!” 

Alex Salmond was no cheerleader for New Labour – but he learned from them, campaigning on a simple pledge card which was delivered at speed. In 2007, his incoming government abolished bridge tolls, froze council tax, killed university tuition fees and increased police numbers.

Starmer’s team appears to have read the First 100 Days Playbook backwards. It takes a special kind of incompetence to turn your honeymoon with voters into the ultimate bad romance.