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Late-Stage Tory Malaise - How Did Labour Go So Wrong So Quickly?
- Jasper Goddard
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
It was meant to be different. When Labour rode to a massive 174 seat majority in July 2024, despite a palpable lack of excitement about the Keir Starmer project, a feeling that at least the adults were back in the room prevailed. Even if Starmer’s Labour lacked ideas and energy, they would at least provide a period of stability for a country in desperate need of calm leadership. Ministers such as Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Ed Miliband and Bridget Phillipson had spent significant time learning their briefs in the shadow cabinet, before transitioning into government to lead the same department. This was how a responsible government should conduct itself.
But fast-forward barely 18 months and the picture resembles something all too familiar to an electorate that endured 14 years of chaotic Conservative rule. The period of 2016 - 2024 in UK politics was characterised by Tory infighting that led to five different leaders and more than ten major cabinet reshuffles (including initial formations). With so much turbulence in government, it is surely impossible to improve the state of the country. And now Labour are following the Tories’ lead.
Starmer’s first year was littered with mini-crises, from the ‘freebies’ controversy, to having to back down over welfare reform after over 120 Labour MPs rebelled, but it was in September of this year that Labour truly descended into disorder. Within a week, Angela Rayner resigned after underpaying stamp duty, before Peter Mandelson was sacked as the British ambassador to the U.S. due to new revelations surrounding his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Scandals and government ministers unfortunately go hand-in-hand no matter the party in question, but it was the scope of Starmer’s subsequent cabinet reshuffle that started to evoke memories of the recent Conservative reign. The likes of Lammy, Yvette Cooper, Steve Reed and Peter Kyle were moved from roles they were surely just beginning to grasp, despite there only being the need to replace Rayner as the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
This was followed by increasing rumours Andy Burnham would look to mount a leadership challenge to topple Starmer, despite not holding a seat in parliament.
And now, just after things had appeared to calm down, chaos has enveloped Downing Street once more. Earlier this week, leaks suggested No.10 was in “full bunker mode” to protect Keir Starmer over fears Wes Streeting would use the upcoming budget to launch a leadership challenge. Streeting denied the claims and urged Starmer to sack whoever was briefing the media, with Starmer initially suggesting the leak came from No.10, before retracting his claim.
The party in power has changed, but the chaos of government remains the same. There is perhaps nothing more frustrating to voters than party infighting while the country and economy remains in such a fragile state. Politicians become caught up in the political and media bubbles, losing sight of what they were elected to do, while voters struggle to pay the bills and public services falter. The electorate gave Labour a mandate to rule under the presumption they would throw everything into improving society over the next five years.
By following the same trajectory as the late-stage, previous Conservative government, Labour MPs only add fuel to the fire of the populist narrative of the likes of Nigel Farage. The idea that a Reform government would quell such turbulence is, of course, nonsensical (you only have to look to the Reform-led councils to confirm this), but Farage’s positioning as an anti-establishment figure increasingly appeals to those voters who have seen successive centre-right and centre-left governments descend into fighting themselves, rather than fighting to fix the country.
Whether one agrees with their policies or not, there is little dispute that Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher led the two most transformative governments of the last 50 years. And the table below shows that, other than John Major, these two leaders kept their frontbench ministers in their roles for on average the longest period of time. This is, of course, partly down to the length of their administrations (Liz Truss’s front bench couldn’t have lasted longer than her 45 days in office). But it also reflects the benefit of a long-termist approach. Yes, sometimes events dictate that changes must be made. The Rayner and Mandelson affairs are proof of this. But this doesn’t mean everything must be ripped up and started over.
We increasingly live in a world of instant gratification, in which we are fed a never-ending stream of entertainment and information through algorithms vying to capture our attention indefinitely whenever we unlock our phones. This has led to a collective impatience when things aren’t progressing with the speed and effectiveness we desire. But to truly affect change, time is required. And for state departments to be run effectively, surely ministers need to be masters of their briefs.
The former Conservative minister and current Rest is Politics podcast co-host, Rory Stewart, appealed to the incoming Starmer government to commit to keeping cabinet ministers in their posts for a full term. This would’ve at least allowed for continuity over the government’s five-year rule, whether it proved successful or not. But instead, Starmer has continued a worrying recent trend of enacting an early reshuffle and now cannot shake off rumours of a coming challenge for his leadership.
Despite Starmer and Reeves’ struggles, Labour MPs must remain behind them. Significant defeats at the next round of by-elections will provoke fears of an emphatic defeat at the next general election, but succumbing to infighting and ousting Starmer will make Labour indistinguishable from the last Conservative government and surely only confirm their defeat in 2029.
Image: Flickr/Revolutionary Communist Party
Image cropped to centre relevant poster.