When Sir Keir Starmer appointed Rachel Reeves his second shadow chancellor last May, the Labour leader told her: “If we are going to win the next election, people have got to trust you with their money and they’ve got to imagine me as their prime minister.”
This weekend Reeves is responding to the growing cost-of-living crisis with plans to cut £200 from the energy bills of every household and £600 from those of the most vulnerable, paid for with a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas. It is the kind of costed policy that positions Labour as a government in waiting rather than a glorified pressure group.
Starmer’s speech on Tuesday, stressing his patriotism, came as his party found itself consistently ahead in the polls for the first time in years and his own ratings forged ahead of Boris Johnson’s.
Yet questions remain: is Labour in the ascendancy because of Starmer or because of Johnson’s recent own goals? Has the Labour leader developed the political instincts he will need for the fight? Does Labour have the right political strategy? And does it have the money to win a majority?
The plan when Starmer became leader, outlined by his closest aide, Morgan McSweeney, was to spend phase one of his leadership correcting the problems left behind by Jeremy Corbyn: apologising for antisemitism and gaining control of party headquarters and the ruling national executive committee, culminating in changing the rules at last year’s party conference to make another hard-left leadership grab all but impossible.
Phase two was to introduce Starmer to the nation. In the process he made a highly personal speech in the autumn and began to prosecute an argument against the government.
Phase three — now under way, according to his team — is for Labour to start to look a credible alternative to the Conservatives. Even Starmer’s internal critics say the recent shift in the polls has bolstered McSweeney’s credibility.
The large fly in the ointment, sources inside and outside Starmer’s inner circle say, is that the party is on the verge of bankruptcy and fearful of court cases brought by former employees who claim discrimination during Corbyn’s tenure. “That’s true,” a source close to Starmer said. Another adviser said: “There would be some advantages to declaring bankruptcy. You could start a new organisation with a new membership. But if you did that, the Tories would just run ads saying: ‘You ran your own party into the ground — you can’t be trusted with public money.’”
One suggestion is that the membership has fallen to just over 400,000. “The figures I’ve seen suggest we’ve lost well over 100,000 members, and most of those were the people who knocked on doors. That’s also millions of pounds no longer coming in,” a source said.
It is also claimed that some shadow ministers were moved in the reshuffle in November precisely so HQ could demand fewer aides. The media monitoring unit set up by Alastair Campbell as Tony Blair’s spin doctor has been scrapped.
Starmer’s aides insist they will have a good story to tell about new donors switching from the Tories and Liberal Democrats but have not released names. Others admit the leader is “not a good fundraiser” because he finds it difficult to ask for donations.
The strategy outlined to the shadow cabinet by McSweeney and Deborah Mattinson — Gordon Brown’s former pollster, who wrote a book about the red wall and is now head of strategy — calls for a heavy focus on seats with a “blue-collar history”. They represent 70 of the 200 likely battleground seats, and the Tories hold a third of them — the fabled red wall that collapsed in 2019.
Labour already controls the vast majority of urban seats. There is far less focus on more than 50 seats in the commuter belt and another 50 in shire areas, where Labour holds fewer than one in ten. Similarly, insiders say the focus is on recruiting switchers who voted for the Tories and the Brexit Party in 2019, rather than targeting the one in six Labour voters from 2019 who now say they would vote Green or Lib Dem or don’t know.
McSweeney has told frontbenchers that there are not enough of these voters in the seats that matter. By contrast, the roughly 1.5 million former Labour voters who backed the Tories but might switch back have been labelled “hero voters” by Mattinson.
“We’re told all our messaging needs to be geared towards those blue-collar seats and voters,” a shadow cabinet source said. “This is where a lot of the PLP [parliamentary Labour Party] have reservations and think we are missing a trick by not going aggressively after the commuter belt and shire areas where we made big inroads in 1997.”
This reluctance to invest tight resources in non-core seats was seen at the recent North Shropshire by-election, where Labour left the field clear for the Lib Dems to take the seat from the Tories. The same approach to rural areas was evident when Luke Pollard, an environment spokesman who had done well in getting the National Farmers’ Union on side, was moved in the reshuffle. When the decision was questioned, a member of Starmer’s top team said: “The last time I looked there weren’t any farms in Gedling” — a Nottinghamshire red wall seat seized by the Tories in 2019.
“It’s like the Biden strategy of relentless focus on Michigan and Wisconsin and not caring about Texas because it’s not what we need to win,” the veteran added. “But we came out of 2017 thinking we might win Hastings, and next time I’m not even sure we are going to be trying there.”
A Labour strategist disputed this interpretation: “The voters we are interested in targeting are the same kinds of people in Harlow, Southampton and Worthing as they are in red wall seats.”
The issue that Labour thinks is cutting through is Johnson’s incompetence. Focus group feedback suggests that the prime minister’s chaotic style is no longer appealing to voters. “It’s like someone you have a mad crush on and you think everything they do is rather cute,” said a Labour official familiar with the findings. “When you go off them you find the same characteristics repellent.”
Such voters are prepared to look at Starmer because “they think he runs a tight ship”. In a focus group in Burnley just before Christmas, officials were encouraged when a woman spent ten minutes explaining that Johnson was an embarrassment to Britain and then said Starmer “looks really smart and I’d feel quite proud if he was in charge”.
But is he ready to be prime minister? Opinions are mixed. His team says he has become more confident and aggressive politically as the government’s vaccine bounce has worn off. “Around Christmas 2020 he was getting very frustrated by his inability to make progress,” said one close aide. “It’s the only time I’ve seen him seriously pissed off. The biggest change to him happened over the summer, when he went away to Devon and came back with renewed energy and a clear idea of what he wanted to do. He understands it’s not enough to win an argument with Boris Johnson at the dispatch box. You need a proper political argument.”
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When Sir Keir Starmer appointed Rachel Reeves his second shadow chancellor last May, the Labour leader told her: “If we are going to win the next election, people have got to trust you with their money and they’ve got to imagine me as their prime minister.”
This weekend Reeves is responding to the growing cost-of-living crisis with plans to cut £200 from the energy bills of every household and £600 from those of the most vulnerable, paid for with a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas. It is the kind of costed policy that positions Labour as a government in waiting rather than a glorified pressure group.
Starmer’s speech on Tuesday, stressing his patriotism, came as his party found itself consistently ahead in the polls for the first time in years and his own ratings forged ahead of Boris Johnson’s.
Yet questions remain: is Labour in the ascendancy because of Starmer or because of Johnson’s recent own goals? Has the Labour leader developed the political instincts he will need for the fight? Does Labour have the right political strategy? And does it have the money to win a majority?
The plan when Starmer became leader, outlined by his closest aide, Morgan McSweeney, was to spend phase one of his leadership correcting the problems left behind by Jeremy Corbyn: apologising for antisemitism and gaining control of party headquarters and the ruling national executive committee, culminating in changing the rules at last year’s party conference to make another hard-left leadership grab all but impossible.
Phase two was to introduce Starmer to the nation. In the process he made a highly personal speech in the autumn and began to prosecute an argument against the government.
Phase three — now under way, according to his team — is for Labour to start to look a credible alternative to the Conservatives. Even Starmer’s internal critics say the recent shift in the polls has bolstered McSweeney’s credibility.
The large fly in the ointment, sources inside and outside Starmer’s inner circle say, is that the party is on the verge of bankruptcy and fearful of court cases brought by former employees who claim discrimination during Corbyn’s tenure. “That’s true,” a source close to Starmer said. Another adviser said: “There would be some advantages to declaring bankruptcy. You could start a new organisation with a new membership. But if you did that, the Tories would just run ads saying: ‘You ran your own party into the ground — you can’t be trusted with public money.’”
One suggestion is that the membership has fallen to just over 400,000. “The figures I’ve seen suggest we’ve lost well over 100,000 members, and most of those were the people who knocked on doors. That’s also millions of pounds no longer coming in,” a source said.
It is also claimed that some shadow ministers were moved in the reshuffle in November precisely so HQ could demand fewer aides. The media monitoring unit set up by Alastair Campbell as Tony Blair’s spin doctor has been scrapped.
Starmer’s aides insist they will have a good story to tell about new donors switching from the Tories and Liberal Democrats but have not released names. Others admit the leader is “not a good fundraiser” because he finds it difficult to ask for donations.
The strategy outlined to the shadow cabinet by McSweeney and Deborah Mattinson — Gordon Brown’s former pollster, who wrote a book about the red wall and is now head of strategy — calls for a heavy focus on seats with a “blue-collar history”. They represent 70 of the 200 likely battleground seats, and the Tories hold a third of them — the fabled red wall that collapsed in 2019.
Labour already controls the vast majority of urban seats. There is far less focus on more than 50 seats in the commuter belt and another 50 in shire areas, where Labour holds fewer than one in ten. Similarly, insiders say the focus is on recruiting switchers who voted for the Tories and the Brexit Party in 2019, rather than targeting the one in six Labour voters from 2019 who now say they would vote Green or Lib Dem or don’t know.
McSweeney has told frontbenchers that there are not enough of these voters in the seats that matter. By contrast, the roughly 1.5 million former Labour voters who backed the Tories but might switch back have been labelled “hero voters” by Mattinson.
“We’re told all our messaging needs to be geared towards those blue-collar seats and voters,” a shadow cabinet source said. “This is where a lot of the PLP [parliamentary Labour Party] have reservations and think we are missing a trick by not going aggressively after the commuter belt and shire areas where we made big inroads in 1997.”
This reluctance to invest tight resources in non-core seats was seen at the recent North Shropshire by-election, where Labour left the field clear for the Lib Dems to take the seat from the Tories. The same approach to rural areas was evident when Luke Pollard, an environment spokesman who had done well in getting the National Farmers’ Union on side, was moved in the reshuffle. When the decision was questioned, a member of Starmer’s top team said: “The last time I looked there weren’t any farms in Gedling” — a Nottinghamshire red wall seat seized by the Tories in 2019.
“It’s like the Biden strategy of relentless focus on Michigan and Wisconsin and not caring about Texas because it’s not what we need to win,” the veteran added. “But we came out of 2017 thinking we might win Hastings, and next time I’m not even sure we are going to be trying there.”
A Labour strategist disputed this interpretation: “The voters we are interested in targeting are the same kinds of people in Harlow, Southampton and Worthing as they are in red wall seats.”
The issue that Labour thinks is cutting through is Johnson’s incompetence. Focus group feedback suggests that the prime minister’s chaotic style is no longer appealing to voters. “It’s like someone you have a mad crush on and you think everything they do is rather cute,” said a Labour official familiar with the findings. “When you go off them you find the same characteristics repellent.”
Such voters are prepared to look at Starmer because “they think he runs a tight ship”. In a focus group in Burnley just before Christmas, officials were encouraged when a woman spent ten minutes explaining that Johnson was an embarrassment to Britain and then said Starmer “looks really smart and I’d feel quite proud if he was in charge”.
But is he ready to be prime minister? Opinions are mixed. His team says he has become more confident and aggressive politically as the government’s vaccine bounce has worn off. “Around Christmas 2020 he was getting very frustrated by his inability to make progress,” said one close aide. “It’s the only time I’ve seen him seriously pissed off. The biggest change to him happened over the summer, when he went away to Devon and came back with renewed energy and a clear idea of what he wanted to do. He understands it’s not enough to win an argument with Boris Johnson at the dispatch box. You need a proper political argument.”