Keir Starmer has urged his shadow cabinet to stop reporting to the press that he is bored and has warned them: “What is boring is to be in opposition.”
Stung by a series of negative stories about his leadership, Starmer angrily urged his colleagues at the shadow cabinet meeting on Tuesday to focus on their work, telling them it was ” boring “undermining Labor ‘s plan to return to government.
Several around the table echoed their leader’s calls for unity and discretion, in a lengthy exchange described by a shadow leader as “ironically very boring.”
Starmer has been accused by senior colleagues in recent days of not clearly articulating what Labor stands for or of enthusing the public about his leadership.
An Opinium poll for Sunday’s Observer found voters believe Boris Johnson is still a better prime minister than Starmer, at 28% to 26%, though Labor is consistently leading the Conservatives when it comes to of voting intention.
However, Starmer’s allies believe he has not been given enough credit to rebuild his party’s reputation after the catastrophic result of the 2019 general election or to undermine Johnson’s position.
They hope to win next week’s by-elections in Wakefield and point to Labor’s solid performance in the May local elections when the party advanced in many of the key seats it needs to win to get a majority in Westminster.
Starmer’s approach is based on a detailed analysis of the voter groups that Labor should win in these seats and what messages are likely to appeal to them.
The party achieved political success with its policy of imposing an extraordinary tax on energy companies that benefit from rising world fossil fuel prices, a plan that was rejected and later adopted by the government. But some MPs have raised concerns about whether the party has another headline recruitment policy ready to replace it.
Starmer’s team is determined not to rush into producing a detailed policy shopping list, however, with more than two years to go before the next general election. Instead, Starmer is expected to deliver several speeches ahead of his party’s fall conference, in which he will outline how he will mark Labor’s election message.
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As the cost-of-living crisis is likely to appear largely in any future campaign, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves released a paper called “Work Plan for the Economy” over the weekend. It included proposals for immediate family support, as well as longer-term policies such as the development of a high-tech industrial strategy.
Starmer has vowed to resign if Durham police find out he broke Covid’s rules by eating a curry and drinking beer with his teammates ahead of last May’s Hartlepool by-election. His team believes this is very unlikely, but the promise to go unleashed leadership among potential future candidates for Starmer’s job.
A word cloud produced this week by polling group JL Partners, based on responses from 1,000 voters, showed that “boring” was Starmer’s most used adjective. Other notable descriptions included “sabric” and “weak,” but also “honest.”
An equivalent exercise for Boris Johnson showed that the most common public description of him was “liar”, with “incompetent” and “clown” also standing out a lot.