- Starmer’s approval hits record low in October
- Donation scandal and pension cuts fuel discontent
- Rioting and NHS reforms add to early struggles
London, United Kingdom – Keir Starmer, the British prime minister (PM), is unpopular.
According to a YouGov poll conducted on October 8, the 62-year-old former lawyer’s favorability ratings have dropped to their lowest level since he took over as Labour leader in 2020, with his popularity declining even more since becoming Prime Minister.
According to YouGov, more than six in ten Britons loathe Starmer.
It’s easily the worst start to a government’s time in office in living memory – and it wasn’t as if Labour were that popular anyway,” Tim Bale, a political science professor at Queen Mary University of London.
On July 4, Starmer led his then-opposition party to a landslide election victory and a substantial majority in Parliament, pushing the Conservatives, who had been in power for over a decade, into the background.
However, turnout was low, at under 50%, the lowest percentage by share of population since universal suffrage.
According to Bale, the freebie problem is the most pressing issue that [Labour] must address because it has severely hurt their brand.
“In the long run, the economy and the NHS will remain the most pressing challenges, as they always have. If the government gets it right, they have a chance of recovering.”
A donation scandal has dominated the news in recent weeks.
Starmer, whose yearly pay is approximately 167,000 pounds ($218,000), has admitted to collecting gifts totaling more than 100,000 pounds ($131,000) during the last five years. He has accepted more presents than any other member of Parliament (MP) over this period, including some after being elected Prime Minister.
News of the lodging fees, expensive glasses, Taylor Swift concert tickets, football match tickets, apparel, and other handouts he has embraced has enraged the British public, many of whom are still experiencing a cost-of-living crisis.
Starmer’s donors include a wealthy Labour peer, Lord Waheed Alli, and the Premier League.
Accepting presents is lawful, but because Labour is traditionally a left-wing party that promotes equality and transparency, the Prime Minister and other Labour MPs who have accepted freebies are accused of greed.
There are also concerns about influence.
Henry Newman, a former Conservative political consultant and director of The Whitehall Project on Substack, told the Financial Times that [Starmer’s] personal donor, Alli, was granted preferential access to Downing Street while working on fundraising and government appointments. The government must be transparent about Lord Alli’s specific involvement, or cronyism worries will develop.
‘It has been quite a rough start’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also offended a significant sector of society by reducing pensioners’ winter fuel payments, which means that about 10 million older people will no longer receive a few hundred pounds of respite as energy providers raise costs this winter.
It’s been quite a shaky start,” said Anand Menon, a European politics and international affairs professor at King’s College London. “The surprise was how badly they’ve handled it.”
He believes that Labour has a public relations problem.
“They’ve made the donations controversy the main story… “They failed to respond quickly enough to provide a coherent coordinating response,” he stated.
What you want is for the government to come in and tell us a story about where we are and where they are going, and then bring that narrative home to us. There hasn’t been a narrative in the first few months of governance, and I believe that is what has created a gap. “Everyone is waiting for the budget.
Reeves, who made a 7,500-pound ($9,800) contribution to clothing before the election, will present the budget on October 30. There is talk that the government may hike certain taxes, such as capital gains and inheritance.
In addition to denying the winter heating payment to better-off retirees, Labour has stated that the state pension will increase by 4% and will keep its election pledge of applying VAT to private school costs.
In September, Starmer, Reeves, and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner attempted to end the donation problem by stating they would no longer receive free clothing.
According to Steven Fielding, a politics professor at the University of Nottingham who is now working on a book about the Labour Party since the 1970s, Starmer’s administration has been “stumbling” rather than “striding purposefully into the future.
He claimed Labour “totally misunderstood” the timescale in which most British people live, namely that they want jam today, not tomorrow, even if it is impossible to expect it.
It doesn’t help that the two dominant themes that have emerged out of this period [of 100 days] have been the freebies and the poor old pensioners losing out on their winter fuel payments.
While neither issue is “quite as bad” as headlines suggest because politicians receiving money is nothing new and the payout will still reach tens of millions of needy retirees, “that’s the takeaway,” Fielding said.
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Away from Whitehall, Starmer’s first days in office were marred by nationwide race rioting following a fatal knife attack on young girls in northern England. Online agitators, fanning the embers of divisiveness, conjured up a Muslim migrant suspect to blame and successfully incited thousands of protestors.
Starmer supported what his home secretary called “swift justice” against the rioters, earning acclaim for his calm but stern response.
However, hard-right MP Nigel Farage led the PM’s critics, who included billionaire Elon Musk, in accusing the government of overseeing “two-tier” policing, implying without evidence that minority groups and the left are punished less harshly than white offenders.
Amid rioting, a scandal, and a financial blow to retirees, some of Labour’s less dramatic promises have slipped through the cracks.
In September, Starmer proposed a 10-year plan to enhance the NHS, stating that no more funds would be provided before reform.
Most Britons will be affected by changes to the health sector, which is plagued by problems such as high wait times and staff shortages.
“Labour will definitely hope that the first 100 days will not be in the forefront of anybody’s mind by the time there’s a next election,” Fielding told reporters.
“Can you tell me what the first 100 days of the [ex-Conservative PM] Boris Johnson government were like?” “I certainly cannot.”
