{"id":225092,"date":"2025-06-29T22:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T22:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/225092\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T22:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T22:36:09","slug":"keir-starmer-rinsed-again-by-historian-anthony-seldon-who-warns-skates-are-under-pm-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/225092\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer rinsed again by historian Anthony Seldon who warns \u2018skates are under\u2019 PM | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Keir Starmer has been ripped apart by a leading political historian who suggested the Prime Minister was \u201cdamaged property\u201d after an \u201calarmingly precipitous\u201d collapse in popularity<\/a>. Sir Anthony Seldon tore into the PM for the second time in two days, telling GB News<\/a> the \u201cskates are under\u201d the Labour leader and that he would find it \u201cvery difficult\u201d to recover.<\/p>\n

But the biographer of every prime minister since Sir John Major<\/a> said it would be too disruptive for the country if Sir Keir were to be deposed this year, because it would mean an unprecedented eighth leader in just 15 years. The author and former head teacher said that throughout political history, \u201cto be this unpopular this quickly \u2026 is very, very unusual\u201d. Sir Keir\u2019s personal popularity has plummeted since he took office after last year\u2019s thumping General Election victory<\/a> after he launched a series of controversial policies, including taking the winter fuel allowance away from most pensioners.<\/p>\n

In May, his net approval rating<\/a> plunged to -46%, although it has since improved to -36%.<\/p>\n

Asked if it was possible for Sir Keir to turn around his fortunes, Sir Anthony said: \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you lose confidence in the country<\/a> and above all where your own MPs lose confidence in you, and the media pick that up in part because they\u2019re telling the media what it\u2019s like inside the parliamentary party or inside No 10, you really do have the skates under you.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you\u2019ve lost the confidence and trust<\/a>, it\u2019s as if you\u2019ve got a sign hanging over you saying \u2018damaged property\u2019 and people are just waiting for that moment to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Anthony pointed out that Sir John never recovered his authority after Black Wednesday in 1992, when Britain was forced to withdraw from the Exchange Rate Mechanism.<\/p>\n

Similarly, he said Gordon Brown<\/a> never regained his standing in the polls after failing to call an expected general election in 2007, leading to claims he had \u201cbottled it\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the historian said of Sir Keir: \u201cFrom another perspective, it would not be good for the country if he were to go and have a successor say in the autumn. It would be eight different prime ministers in 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is without precedent. This is not good for democracy. It\u2019s not good for economic stability. It\u2019s not good for the perception of Britain abroad as a trading nation, as a credible partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people would want him to go, I\u2019m sure, but from a national perspective it would be better if he were somehow to pull out of this and show a commitment to growth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that \u201cnothing matters more\u201d than getting the economy to grow<\/a> because it has been \u201cflatlining since 2008\u201d. He also said the country needs to \u201cfeel a sense of growing prosperity for themselves and their children rather than anxiety\u201d.<\/p>\n

Just a day earlier, Sir Anthony said of Sir Keir on BBC Newsnight:<\/a> \u201cNo Labour prime minister, certainly not since 1945, has begun so badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The writer said the PM had \u201cbegun with such ignorance of history and how you conduct yourself as prime minister\u201d and was incapable of presenting a vision of where he was taking the country.<\/p>\n

Referring to Sir Keir\u2019s latest U-turn on benefit cuts<\/a>, Sir Anthony said: \u201cIf there was a clear vision that he\u2019d laid out, a story about where he is taking the Labour Government and the country, people perhaps might understand why this cut was necessary. But there have been so many flip-flops<\/a>, they don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tells a story of a fundamentally incompetent prime minister. He\u2019s repeating the same mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Keir Starmer has been ripped apart by a leading political historian who suggested the Prime Minister was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[807,528,12,88812,88813,11508,16,16235,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-225092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-keir-starmer","10":"tag-labour-party","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-political-parties-section","13":"tag-politicians-section","14":"tag-politics-section","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-uk-politics-section","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114769047297456549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}