Frozen by the challenges of power: how Starmer turned triumph into tragedy

Starmer seemed ruthless in winning power – but less certain on how to wield it Frozen by the challenges of power: how Starmer turned triumph into tragedy Starmer appeared ruthless in banishing the influence of Jeremy Corbyn, and winning power – but far less certain on how to wield it Few would describe him as a dramatic man, but Keir Starmer’s political career has been almost Shakespearean in its trajectory: a mere 11 years to enter parliament, lead Labour to an election win many assumed was impossible and then, inside the final two years, throw it all away. His demise is, of course, a reflection of an unprecedented era, one in which voter loyalties were atomised, a two-party hegemony fractured into five, and for the first time ever Labour faced a coherent threat on its left as well as its right. Perhaps no one could have steered the party through all this. But even Starmer’s closest allies and supporters will accept that he was very much at fault. No modern prime minister has looked so well-suited to the job on paper and been so fundamentally inept in practice. “Starmer didn’t know what he was doing in three ways,” said Anthony Seldon, the historian who has written biographies of every PM from John Major to Rishi Sunak. “Firstly, he never worked out what the job was – what does the prime minister do? Secondly, he never knew what he wanted to do, above all not on economic policy. And thirdly, he didn’t know who to appoint. “Once you’ve got those three things happening it’s never going to work. It’s just a question of how quickly the wheels come off.” As a precis this might sound harsh. But it is difficult to counter the wider sense of a politician adept at winning the Labour leadership and then guiding the party to victory, before becoming frozen by the endless choices of power, hiding behind an ever-expanding lexicon of missions, goals and plans for change. This chasm between campaigning and governing was noticed, with alarm, by some working directly with Starmer in the final days before Labour’s election triumph of July 2024, a landslide in seats if not the popular vote. View image in fullscreen Starmer celebrates winning the 2024 general election with a speech at Tate Modern in London. Photograph: Ricky Vigil/Getty Images One staffer recounted asking why they had not yet seen a plan to govern, to be told that there did not appear to be one. “After the win we expected some sort of blitz of major policies. Instead, we just had the PM going round meeting mayors on a UK tour. There were a lot of people saying: ‘This can’t be it. This isn’t how you do politics.’” Some put at least part of the blame for this botched beginning on Sue Gray, the veteran civil servant who was Starmer’s chief of staff, another example of a highly capable person in the wrong job for their talents. Others say the fault was more Starmer’s for failing to adapt his approach from an opposition leader trying to rebuild a party after the disastrous 2019 election to inevitable pr