The Prime Minister is eminently capable. Why is he so bad at being Prime Minister?

There can be no doubt that the Prime Minister is a very able man. Nor can there be any doubt that he is a very competent man. The Prime Minister conquered the legal profession to its highest attainable rank outside of politics. The Prime Minister entered politics for the right reasons. The Prime Minister climbed the ranks of his party to become its leader just five years after entering Parliament, a record in the Labour Party. Why then, given his glittering resume and clear ability, is Keir Starmer so bad at being Prime Minister?

When we look back at the Labour Prime Ministers, and there have been remarkably few, the range in their public perception is impressive. Attlee is the party’s undisputed godfather, Blair is the love/hate figure, Wilson is the one who gets a sort of murmur in the pub, Callaghan and MacDonald might get a small grumble, and Brown a hearty boo. But of those six only, only Attlee, Wilson and Blair have won majorities, and only those three remained at the party’s helm for a decent amount of time. Brown and Callaghan inherited the leadership when the party was ready for civil war, and both failed to prevent that civil war, whilst MacDonald was an active participant of Labour’s civil war in 1929, ultimately being booted out of the party that he led.

The link therefore between Labour leader, party unity, and electoral success is clear. Labour can win only when it is united, something Attlee, Wilson and Blair all understood, and something all three ensured just about endured during their leaderships.

Keir Starmer is therefore unique amongst Labour Prime Ministers. He’s the only Labour leader to have won a majority and let his party fall immediately into disunity and unpopularity. In the two years since his landslide election success, the Prime Minister has overseen an impressive collapse in his popularity, both with his own MPs and the country.

Why then, for all his indisputable experience, talent and achievement, does everyone seem to think the Prime Minister’s not up to the job. The answer is relatively simple, and entirely unique. It is an answer not applicable to the politically savvy operators of Attlee, Wilson and Blair, and it’s not one applicable to MacDonald, Brown or Callaghan either. The Prime Minister is not a politician. He’s not a politician to his fingertips. Attlee, Wilson, Blair, all of them politicians above all else. All were schooled in Labour Party politics whilst rising its ranks. All knew how to manage the party whilst retaining public support. They knew when to use a heavy hand to crush dissent, and they knew when to keep a light touch and let the party rebel. They all built broad cabinets that were united and divided at the same time. They all had that deft touch that could quietly steer their party in a certain direction without explosive opposition. All three of them lived and breathed politics.

The Prime Minister does not share that passion, and without that passion, he does not share the political gene. He doesn’t, in brief, like politics. And that means he fundamentally misinterprets his role. Successful Labour Prime Ministers have to, before being good at being Prime Minister (whatever that even means in modern Britain), be good at being Leader of the Labour Party, and that’s the job that, not only is Keir Starmer not any good at, but has no time for.

The Labour Party currently enjoys an enormous majority in the House of Commons, yet the Prime Minister seems intent on punishing the tiniest piece of backbench dissent as if he has a majority of 5. He’s suspended backbench MPs for doing outrageous things, such as standing up for their own beliefs and even for representing their constituents. For the decade Blair presided over similar majorities, only 4 MPs ever had the whip suspended. Blair understood, Wilson understood, Attlee understood, its far more useful having rebels in the tent pissing out than it is having them out pissing in. Labour has always been the party of dissent and rebellion. Attlee’s cabinet colleagues actively tried to push him out in 1945, Roy Jenkins famously led a rebellion over the EEC in 1971, 25% of the party voted against the Iraq War in 2003. None of these rebels were suspended or punished. The key to a successful marriage is to let your partner have small victories. Labour MPs love a rebellion, they are happiest when they are rebelling against the establishment, and Labour leaders have always let them rebel, because Labour leaders have largely understood the power of reconciliation and conciliation in letting rebels have their small victories.

This nervous bellicosity has left the Prime Minister ignoring the first rule of party politics: don’t make enemies when you don’t have to. The Prime Minister has made an enemy out of the hard left through his ruthless marginalisation of that faction, he’s frustrated the soft left by sacking or demoting figures such as Dodds (who later resigned from the government) and Nandy, and he’s made an enemy out of his backbenchers by suspending anyone with the gall to have their own mind. 400 days into Starmer’s premiership and he’s had more ministerial resignations than Boris Johnson or Theresa May had in that time, two Prime Ministers who governed in far more turbulent times without a Commons majority. And how were these two Tory PMs eventually brought down? By cabinet ministers who resigned within their first 400 days. Rule number one of politics: don’t make an enemy when you don’t have to.

Perhaps the most instructive way of understanding the PMs dysfunctional party relationship is to appreciate its dictatorial, business or indeed law firm, structure. He’s running Labour as if it were a homogenous group, with one goal, where the boss decides for one and all, and for once and for all. This is not how political parties operate, least of all Labour, a famously diverse, fluid, and often disparate tapestry of factions and sub-factions. Wilson understood that, so did Blair and Attlee, as for that matter did Callaghan and Brown. In politics, respect and loyalty are not given, nor are they really earned. Prime Ministers of all colours survive by managing the thick soup of ideals and motivations that exist inside their own party, and by creating enemies only when it is absolutely necessary.

Whether it’s caused by active betrayal or, far more commonly, the electoral oblivion precipitated by disunity and internal dissent, Prime Ministers are so often brought down by the enemies they have created along the way. This Prime Minister has already created enemies in pursuing his belief that the best way to run the country is to have his 400 MPs entirely united behind him. Maybe that’s true, but it’s no way to run the Labour Party.

Image: Flickr/ No 10 Downing Street (Simon Dawson) Licence.

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