Labour’s 100-day honeymoon finished before it even started

The political calendar is replete with artificial milestones, and none more so than the 100 days of grace new governments expect to enjoy free of criticism from the public, their political rivals, and the media. Although this notion goes back to France under Napoleon, it has been very much associated with US politics since 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in the midst of the Great Depression and embarked on introducing extensive legislation in his first 100 days that constituted his New Deal, a program that put the US economy on the path of recovery.

We live in much less patient times, and the newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour government have had a few rough months in office since their landslide victory in early July, much of that due to the nature of modern politics, but equally out of their own somewhat inept machinations that can also be attributed to inexperience. Starmer himself has confessed to having some “choppy days” in his few months as prime minister. In an interview with the BBC, he revealed that so far, his new job had been “much tougher than anything I’ve done before, but much better,” admitting that it had been somewhat of a hard landing after his party’s great election victory, but he was also optimistic about his ability to exert a positive influence on the future of his country.

Inevitably, following a dismal 14 years of Conservative government that inflicted the most unnecessary self-harm exercise of Brexit on the country, while overseeing dangerously declining public services and unbearable hikes in the cost of living, there have been unrealistic expectations that the new government would be able to turn the UK’s fortunes around almost instantly. It is true that before the general election the Labour Party, and especially Starmer, took great care not to over-promise, but all things considered, even if one is generous in assessing their early performance in office, it has been clumsy and far from inspiring confidence, but still a long way from being a disaster. As a matter of fact, they got on with the job rather quickly, even if not always hitting the right notes.

Blaming the previous government for the ills of the country, as justified as it might be, can certainly buy some time, but this time will quickly pass

Yossi Mekelberg

The British electorate decided to unseat the Conservatives on grounds of substance, style, the sense that they were serving the few and not the many, and an overwhelming fatigue in the wake of so much incompetence and corruption. They expected Labour to do way better than this and swept them into power with a massive majority of 172 MPs. Such a majority is a major blessing that guarantees a full term and enables the government to smoothly implement its agenda to the full. But it is also a minor curse, as at any given moment, as has already been demonstrated, it could create a mini-opposition from within the ruling party and expressions of its discontent with certain policies and pieces of legislation, and we have already seen something of a rebellion over cuts to the usual winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners, as well as the capping of child benefit at two children. This has created very early on a public perception of disunity and lack of discipline that implies doubts about the authority of the prime minister, something that tends to take place much later in the election cycle.

Consequently, opinion polls currently make gloomy reading for Labour as 43 percent of Britons said of the 100 days milestone that Labour hadn’t done anything positive yet, although this is quite harsh, and a number of blunders of presentation have made things look worse than they are. To be sure, Labour has to deal with a horrendous economic inheritance left by the previous government. It claims to have found a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances that will require some tough decisions to rectify. Blaming the previous government for the ills of the country, as justified as it might be, can certainly buy some time, but this time will quickly pass. The electorate dumped the Conservatives in order to hear answers to their problems and resolve them, but are less open to hear of more doom and gloom and austerity.

Probably out of inexperience and its eagerness to crack on with the job, most of the output from the new government has felt more task-oriented and less derived from an inspiring grand strategy based on Labour values. The public would like to see more policies that ensure the right of everyone to a decent standard of living that entails unrestricted access to health, education, and food security, and by extension social mobility, instead of the previous government’s operational code of safeguarding the privileges of the already privileged.

Things got worse just before Labour’s recent annual conference, when it was revealed that the prime minister and his wife, the deputy prime minister, and the chancellor all accepted thousands of pounds of free outfits. Starmer also had to give some explanation about his use of a free corporate box to watch his beloved Arsenal, which someone should have told him is never as satisfying anyway as watching with supporters on the terraces. This was not only inappropriate for politicians who for years accused their opponents of corruption through benefiting in their relations with wealthy party benefactors, but in particular for leaders of a party which represents those who are struggling with the ever-increasing cost of living in times when reliance on food banks is at a record high, when the government is warning us that the way out of austerity is a long road ahead economic hardships are far from over.

However, it would be wrong and unfair to only dwell on the stuttering start of the first Labour government in more than 14 years. It has dealt in a principled manner and with determination with the anti-migration riots and scrapped the ill-conceived Conservative plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. It has also ended long-running strikes by doctors and railway workers, set up a publicly owned green energy firm, and is introducing bills to strengthen rights of workers, among them challenging the use of zero-hour contracts, and to boost sick pay.

The government must surely be relieved to have seen off the over-expectations of its first 100 days, and with them the weight of unrealistic hopes for a quick fix to some of the deep-seated and profound failures in British society. It must rectify and put aside the early teething problems, ensure that its ministers are attentive to the voters; adhere to the principles that brought it to power, learn the right lessons from both its successes and its failures, and it has five years to get this great country back on its feet again.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg