British Prime Minister Keir Starmer marks 100 days in office on Saturday with little reason to celebrate.
Starmer’s centre-left Labor Party was elected in a landslide on July 4, returning to power after 14 years. But after weeks of headlines about infighting, freebies and financial gloom, polls suggest Starmer’s personal approval rating has fallen, and Labor is more popular than the Conservative Party rejected by voters after years of fighting and embarrassment.
“You wouldn’t think it had such a bad start,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “First impressions count, and it’s going to be hard to change that.”
Starmer won the election on promises to end years of chaos and scandal under Conservative governments, boost Britain’s sluggish economy and restore fragile public services such as the government-funded National Health Service.
His government says he has made a strong start: He has ended long-running strikes by doctors and railway workers, launched a publicly owned green energy company, canceled the Conservatives’ controversial plan to deport asylum seekers from Rwanda and introduced austerity bills. rights of workers and employers.
Starmer has traveled to Washington, the United Nations and European capitals as he seeks to show that “Britain is back” after years of inward-looking wrangling over Brexit. But the United Kingdom, like its allies, has struggled to have much influence in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the bitter war in Ukraine.
The new government also faced problems at home, including days of right-wing violence against immigrants that erupted in towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland over the summer. Starmer denounced the protesters as “senseless thugs” and vowed to arrest those responsible. So far more than 800 people have appeared in court and almost 400 have been arrested.
Starmer’s most unmanageable problem is Britain’s sluggish economy, plagued by rising public debt and a sluggish 0.2% growth in August, according to official figures.
Starmer warned that things will be “difficult in the short term” before they get better. He says public spending will be blocked by the £22bn (£29bn) public funding “black hole” left by the Conservatives.
One of the government’s first actions was to deprive millions of retirees of a payment intended to help heat their homes in winter. It was intended to show a willingness to take tough economic decisions, but it caused a major backlash from members of Labor and the public sector.
There was also controversy over news that Starmer had accepted clothes worth thousands of pounds (dollars) and designer glasses from a wealthy Labor donor. Starmer insisted the gifts were within the rules, but after days of negative headlines they agreed to return the gifts and a total of 6,000 gifts (about $8,000) and guests, including tickets to see Taylor Swift.
Government officials and advisers have traded on a shaky start, focusing mainly on Downing Street Chief of Staff Sue Gray, and her reported rift with Labor campaign strategist Morgan McSweeney.
Amid intense media scrutiny – which led to the revelation that Gray made more money than the prime minister – he resigned on Sunday, citing reports that he was “at risk of becoming a distraction.” McSweeney will replace him as Starmer’s chief of staff.
Anand Menon, director of the UK political organization Changing Europe, wrote on his website that the government was making “avoidable mistakes” that allowed “the perception of incompetence and ineffectiveness” to take hold.
The government is now focusing on Oct. 30, when Treasurer Rachel Reeves will present her first budget. The government is involved in public and private investment to promote economic growth, but it needs to come up with billions to do this work. Reeves has ruled that there will be no increase in income tax, sales tax or corporation tax, but he also says there will be no “return to austerity” – a tight circle. Assuming you are considering a lease for wealth tax such as capital gains or inheritance tax.
The government hopes that it can take tough decisions early and turn things around by showing economic growth and improving the quality of life. And it’s timed – there shouldn’t be another election until 2029.
Starmer worked at 10 Downing St. on his 100th day in office, and insisted he would not be “pushed out of the way.”
“You get these days and weeks when things are chaotic, nothing is happening,” he told the BBC. “That is in the state of the government.
“It’s been harder than anything I’ve ever done before, but it’s so much better.”
Bale said the government can rebuild the trust of voters, if it shows “not only that it has a very bad legacy, but it has a plan to develop the country.”
“What was missing in some ways was vision,” he said. “I don’t think people have that much of an idea of ​​what Keir Starmer or Labor is about. And that’s something they need to sort out immediately.