LONDON: UK leader Keir Starmer swept to power promising to end years of chaos in British politics, but numerous policy U-turns, controversies and rock-bottom poll ratings see him teetering on the precipice.
In his first speech as prime minister on July 5, 2024, Starmer promised a government of “service” that would “tread more lightly” on people’s lives following 14 years of Conservative rule dominated by Brexit and infighting.
He sought to make a virtue of his more measured approach, contrasting what he saw as his pragmatic managerialism with the ideological bombast of previous Tory prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
“There’s no such thing as Starmerism and there never will be,” the man himself is said to have told colleagues, according to “Get In,” a book about his leadership of the Labour Party written by journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.
But soon after entering Downing Street, he struggled to be the safe pair of hands he had portrayed, while his lack of ideology and charisma has left him struggling to sell a story of where he is taking the country.
He insisted on Monday that he will prove his “doubters” wrong, vowing that his ruling Labour Party would be “better” and bolder as he tries to quell a groundswell of calls from some of Labour’s approximately 400 MPs to step down or face a leadership challenge.
