Keir Starmer’s first Christmas as Prime Minister is likely to go a little different than planned.
Forget, feet in front of the fire at Chequers as he basks in a post-election victory glow.
Instead, for the first time in years, people will be delighted to get coal in their stockings – as pensioners struggle without winter fuel allowance.
Meanwhile, Starmer had best avoid getting his turkey from a farm shop – with farmers in revolt over Rachel Reeves’s Budget.
On the upside, Santa may in his sack give Starmer the only gift this year he doesn’t have to declare.
The Prime Minister should, in reality, still be experiencing a sense of victory following the recent election, which saw Labour return to power after 14 years in opposition.
The only negative on election night was that Starmer fell 7 seats short of matching Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide – a cause of mild irritation to both Starmer and his senior adviser Morgan McSweeney.
But it’s not just on seat count that Starmer is falling short of Blair these days.
After 1997, it was unfathomable that Blair would be embarking on a ‘reset’ before the year is out.
Yet this is what Keir Starmer is having to do as his team try to turn the page on a rocky start to government that has seen a row over freebies, major staff changes, tax rises no-one mentioned during the election campaign – and just this week his first cabinet resignation – over a fraud conviction he knew about when he appointed her.
For all the talk of change during the election, it often feels rather like the government that came before: infighting, psychodrama and sleaze.
So, Starmer is having to recalibrate.
Next week he will take the first step in project ‘new year new Keir’ as he uses a speech to try to put the flesh on the bones of his government agenda – and try to show that he does have the people’s priorities at the heart of it.
Expect more specific targets with McSweeney carrying out polling to refine the government message.
That’s just the beginning as Starmer’s new look No. 10 try to change the narrative around the beleaguered PM.
Too often Starmer looks as though he is a passenger rather than the one making the political weather. In No. 10, civil servants have been surprised at how different he is to Rishi Sunak – who would send them into a spin with notes on everything put in his red box. Starmer is said to have a more hands off approach.
But now he needs to get a grip. So, what else should Starmer do? Going into the new year No. 10 staff are going to have to do more than blame everything that has gone wrong on Sue Gray, the former civil servant – which has been a go-to excuse in recent months. ‘There is nowhere to hide now,’ says a minister of Starmer’s new No. 10 – led by McSweeney.
The Prime Minister and his team are looking at the return of Donald Trump across the pond and the rise of Reform, and take the lesson that they need to get back to talking about people’s priorities.
They want to show they can move to the issues that see voters often look to the right.
Even good news – like the fall in immigration figures announced this week can’t be attributed to his decisions, they are a Conservative legacy.
In No. 10, aides are taking comfort from the fact that they have time to turn things around. ‘We have four years,’ says a senior Labour figure on the need not to panic.
But with the Tories edging ahead in the polls, even government figures admit that the party might start to panic if things look this bleak in the new year. ‘I know we’ve got time,’ says a member of the government. ‘But I give it a few months before ministers start to speak out. A lot of us are wondering what’s the point of the government’.
So, Starmer needs an agenda. There have been some promising signs – the employment white paper – and there will be more on NHS reform. Then there’s the economy. Starmer and Reeves need to shake off the negativity – and they need to learn from the States and the mistakes of the Democrats – everyone said the economy was going gangbusters, but voters didn’t feel it.
They need to find ways to make wide mission concepts something voters can chart in their every day lives.
Starmer may have a big majority but the vote share is small. To move the dial, he needs to govern for the whole country – including those that didn’t vote for him.
That means a focus on the things voters are most worried about: cost of living, borders and security. If he can do that, he’ll have reason for some Christmas cheer this time next year.
Or else Starmer might next year find he’s be the one worried about getting the sack.
