By DAILY MAIL COMMENT Published: 00:50 BST, 27 September 2025 | Updated: 12:25 BST, 27 September 2025
A year ago today, Sir Keir Starmer was putting the finishing touches to his first speech to the Labour conference since leading the party to an election landslide. In those heady days, there was nothing our new Prime Minister wouldn't achieve in his mission to renew Britain. This miracle worker would build a new Jerusalem from the rubble of our 'broken' society. There would be thriving town centres, safe streets, more money in your pocket, secure borders, more affordable homes, a clean-energy revolution, strong public services and a revivified NHS. 'Mark my words – we will deliver,' he told his party faithful. How hollow those hubristic promises seem today. And how the political landscape has changed in 12 short months. From dreaming of sunlit uplands, Sir Keir is now wallowing in the slough of despond. At minus 47, he has the lowest personal approval ratings of any incoming PM on record. The latest 'mega-poll' suggests that if an election were held tomorrow, Labour would lose 267 seats and Reform UK would sweep to power. It's hard to know where to start in listing Sir Keir's failings over the past year, but the two which have caused most despair are the lunacy of his tax, borrow and spend economic policies and his abject failure to tackle migration. In opposition, he and former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pretended they had a strategy to stop the boats, smash the gangs, end the need for asylum hotels and secure the UK's borders. Not only has that turned out to be a pack of lies but they have made a bad situation infinitely worse, allowing unprecedented numbers of illegal migrants to flood in. A year ago today, Sir Keir Starmer was putting the finishing touches to his first speech to the Labour conference since leading the party to an election landslide Public anger is close to boiling point over the way communities are being changed without consent and at how thousands of young migrant men are being dumped on towns and villages which are ill-equipped to cope. A human rights lawyer who has previously represented asylum seekers against the UK government, Sir Keir has never really understood the fear and concern of ordinary families over mass migration. It is not, as he likes to make out, because they are being seduced by the 'far Right'. It's because they believe neither of the main parties is listening to them. And who can blame them. Last year alone migration fuelled a UK population rise of 750,000, equivalent to a city the size of Leeds. It is simply unsustainable, and the public know it. Yet instead of grasping the nettle, Sir Keir resorts to gimmicks and distractions. His latest sinister scheme is to introduce digital ID 'cards' for the entire working population. He spuriously claims it will stop illegal migrants working in the black economy, but they and those who employ them are already outside the law, so it's hard to see how. It is, however, a deeply un-British assault on the civil liberties of everyone else in this country which should be resisted. The polls clearly show voters have no confidence that Sir Keir can solve migration or any of the other problems facing Britain. They are angry, they are gloomy, and they are deeply worried about the social and economic future of this country. In common with large swathes of his own party, they feel he has betrayed them. His landslide was always loveless, with just 20 per cent of the eligible electorate voting him in. This time last year, the country and his party were still prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not any more
