The actress Bette Davis famously hated her Whatever Happened to Baby Jane co-star, Joan Crawford with a passion. When asked for a comment from the media on hearing the news of Crawford’s death she replied: ‘I am told one can only speak good of the dead. Joan Crawford is dead. Good’.
As we mark the passing of the Prime Ministerial baton from one man to another (do please note that Labour is still to elect a female leader) it is always tempting to write a glowing obituary of the previous occupant.
On a personal level I like Keir Starmer. We both came to Parliament in 2015. He was serious, clearly clever and, in private, warm and possessing a sense of humour. However, even his closest friends are going to have to admit his Premiership was a failure. How one takes a landslide victory to become political master of all one surveys, only to find yourself out on your ear within two years, is beyond most rational thought.
He clearly lacked domestic political judgement (Family Farm Tax, Winter Fuel Allowance, Chagos Islands, Peter Mandelson … ).
He also lacked political backbone: 21 screeching U-turns, the most devastating being blinking in the face of backbench opposition to Welfare Reform.
He never seemed happy or comfortable in the Commons. In front of the camera he spoke English devoid of all emotion and humanity. He was literally unable to give a glass of water away to a thirsty man in the Sahara. He had the reverse Midas touch.
When he came into No10, public opinion had moved to circa 68 per cent supporting some form of digital ID. When Starmer threw his weight behind the policy, overnight that support collapsed to 35 per cent and it continued to sink.
He lacked a plan. He was devoid of a vision. Despite saying the buck would always stop with him, he showed a remarkable fondness for throwing his colleagues under a bus in order to save his own skin.
But I think his key problem was that he did not compute the election result. He thought Labour had won because of him. That the country loved him, and was enthused by him. An historically low turnout and share of the popular vote in the 2024 General Election should have rung an enormous alarm bell sounding the message: ‘we won because we weren’t the Tories, not for anything we said or stood for’.
At no point did that penny drop. At no point did the need to start delivering policies that made a positive difference to people’s lives become the compelling dynamic. Starmer became a political bystander and observer rather than the energised agent of change he had promised to be. In his final appearances in the Commons as PM he kept trying to cement in the public conscience a litany of successes and wins. It was all hollow. It was easily punctured by the question from Kemi Badenoch: if all is going so well why is the Labour Party getting rid of him?
A rare blend of twin skills
And so we must turn to Andy Burnham. I rather like Andy. We did not know each other well but always got on. His wry smile and stifled giggle when a colleague and I heckled “who are you” to Jeremy Corbyn and the House dissolved into smiles speak of a man with a sense of humour (a key attribute in politics).
I had not seen him since he left the Commons in 2017 and did not expect him to remember me. Yet, when I saw him just before he took the Oath after his by-election victory and went to congratulate him and, quick as a flash, he said ‘Hi Simon how are you and how’s Dorset?’ I thought that impressive – it speaks to the other key attribute in politics: being human.
Whether he has anything of interest to sell the public in policy terms it is too early to say, but what we do know is that he can sell – he can do retail politics.
His time as Mayor speaks of a man comfortable with administration and giving instructions to officials. We have a PM with the rare blend of the ability to communicate AND administer. We haven’t seen those twin skills combined since Blair and Cameron. Fundamentally I think he also understands why Labour won in ’24. He knows it wasn’t because of Starmer or a Labour policy but because they weren’t my Party.
He also knows that ingredient has a shelf-life of only one election. He knows he has to deliver something. He knows he needs to do it quickly. Time will tell.
The October Budget will be Burnham’s D-Day.
Simon Hoare MP for North Dorset
