There were lots of contested takeaways from the Makerfield by-election this week. But the one thing that seems incontrovertible is that almost everyone wanted to get rid of Keir Starmer. Some of those people voted for Reform, more did so for Burnham – in large part because that was the quickest way to change PM.
Starmer appears to have a deeply-held superiority complex – of morals as well as talents – that explains his habit of telling everyone else that they are irresponsible and incompetent
This is effectively the end of Starmer’s premiership, with reports today that he may step down as soon as Monday. I have spoken previously of Sir Keir as a Beadlet anemone – a red jelly-like blob – that sticks stubbornly in place until forcibly dislodged. He has lived up to that reputation throughout this leadership crisis. Only on Friday he announced new measures to make it easier to move home. An antenna for irony is not one of our PM’s strong points.
What then are his strong points? They were meant to be competence, a strong work ethic, and a conscientiousness and seriousness of purpose that the public saw as absent from the Boris and Truss administrations. Yet all of these things have turned out to be lacking. The revelations by the journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire that colleagues do not hear a peep from the PM from Friday evening to Monday morning, and that he appears more concerned with the dress code of meetings than the substance to be discussed, speak to a bizarrely shallow and hands-off approach to governing a G7 economy and nuclear power.
