Sir Keir Starmer cannot govern. He has only himself to blame

The myth of “ungovernable” Britain

Britain is ungoverned. For the past week, the prime minister, his cabinet and practically every minister have been focused not on matters of state but on the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to America 18 months ago. Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, triggered the latest round by firing Sir Oliver Robbins, the head of the Foreign Office, for not informing him that Lord Mandelson had failed his security vetting. In the House of Commons, MPs cleared time to grill the prime minister; a select committee ran through in excruciating detail how Lord Mandelson was approved. (“You were not aware that this box had a tick in it, the red box saying clearance denied?” asked one mp.) More pressing concerns can wait.

An idea has taken root among Britain’s political classes that the country is ungovernable. Chief among them is the prime minister himself. “My experience now as prime minister is of frustration,” said Sir Keir, who commands a majority of 165 in the least constrained executive anywhere in the democratic world, during one self-pitying explanation. Levers are pulled and nothing happens, he griped. Labour advisers grumble that the state is not fit for purpose; their Tory counterparts mutter: “I told you so.”

All prime ministers see themselves as victims of circumstance. Harold Macmillan summed up the main problem facing statesmen: “Events, dear boy, events.” Stuff happens and politicians suffer the consequences. There is little Sir Keir could have done about Donald Trump’s attack on Iran; sometimes a Russia invades a Ukraine. Some things cannot be blamed on politicians. But plenty can. Sir Keir’s government offers a new twist on Macmillan’s warning: “Previous decisions, dear boy, previous decisions.”

What Sir Keir can control, Sir Keir has blundered. Consider the treatment of Sir Oliver. Some officials were tossed aside for being seen as too slow (such as Sir Chris Wormald, the staid former cabinet secretary, who was hired and then removed by Sir Keir in barely a year). Some (such as Sir Oliver) were booted for not being obstructive enough. Sir Oliver knew Downing Street wanted Lord Mandelson in Washington and he did his best to make it happen. Sir Keir yanked a lever and did not like the result.

No matter. Sir Keir needed someone to blame and Sir Oliver fitted. In an odd way, in his treatment of civil servants Sir Keir has started to resemble Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator, at the end of “The Last King Of Scotland”. “You should have told me not to throw the Asians out, in the first place.” “I did!” shrieked the adviser. “But you did not persuade me!” Perhaps Sir Oliver was lucky. He ended up in front of a select committee; in “The Last King Of Scotland”, the adviser ended up hanging from a meat hook.

Frustration in Downing Street is understandable. Labour promised change. But it did not give itself the means to achieve it. Sir Keir’s government ruled out increases to income taxes or vat. Ignoring sensible tax rises meant having to choose more economically damaging ones. Sir Keir could do little to stop Mr Trump bombing Iran, but he could have stopped his own chancellor immediately hitting business with a tax on jobs.

The tragedy is that he had the parliamentary tools to be bolder. Sir Keir won the second-biggest majority of the post-war era and squandered it. Cack-handed welfare reforms last summer sparked a humiliating rebellion, leaving the government unable to guarantee whether it could pass even tepid legislation. It took Sir Tony Blair eight years to reach such a point; Sir Keir managed it in one. Many, if not most, Labour mps think Sir Keir is a goner. Why try to win points with a prime minister who may not be there long?

The meme that the British state is beyond repair predates Sir Keir. It started life in the Brexit years, a painful period mainly because politicians could not decide how they wanted to depart Europe. Once they did, Britain left swiftly. It was an immense effort—all in the name of making Britain slightly poorer. Better to blame bad execution rather than a terrible idea.

All prime ministers grumble about the system they sit atop. At the bottom, the civil service is a soporific place, filled with demotivated, miserable staff. At the top, it can be a festival of arse-covering and obstinacy by senior civil servants who know their boss will, unlike them, be gone in a year. Sir Keir’s critique would carry more force if the government’s domestic woes were not almost all self-inflicted. The civil service is not a Rolls-Royce, but it is hardly a banger. Sir Keir resembles a driver kicking the wheel of a car he has just smashed into a wall.

At times Sir Keir demands a world where ministers advise and officials decide; where a solid process negates the need for clear politics. But in an uncodified system, governing requires followers with faith. Boris Johnson was assumed to be some pagan deity, right up until his MPs and ministers offered him as a blood sacrifice to voters. Even Liz Truss had loyalists as she Thelma-and-Louised her government off a cliff. By contrast, all Sir Keir triggers is contempt. Those who owe their ministerial Range Rovers to the man offer the meekest support. Douglas Alexander, the secretary of state for Scotland, was asked whether Sir Keir would last until the next election. “I expect so,” he replied.

Political capital is the scarcest resource in any government and Sir Keir has run out of it. And so the government is not governing, even if it staggers on. An attempted relaunch after the May elections is inevitable; the cabinet may be refreshed. At the King’s Speech in May, the monarch will read out a programme of government even he knows Sir Keir has little chance of enacting. Only a lack of clear alternatives keeps Sir Keir in office. Sclerotic politics is just as damaging as a sclerotic state. Britain is not ungovernable. Even so, Sir Keir cannot govern. ■