Perhaps one of the more frustrating and inexplicable aspects of the bloodless coup we witnessed in the Labour party is the willingness of the press to accept the received wisdom and prevailing narrative about the outgoing leader: Keir Starmer is a good man, Keir Starmer is an honest man, Keir Starmer is a moral man.
Of course, this instinct is not new. Never mind the ‘safe pair of hands’, appointed and anointed to usher a precious Ming vase across the electoral finishing line; the most common underlying theme of Keir Starmer’s time in office has been the assertion that, even if he is not entirely suited to the gig, he is – nonetheless – ‘an honest man who gets the big decisions right’. (Alternate: ‘A decent man’.)
The lack of challenge or pushback on this is deafening. There doesn’t seem to be any clear evidence or, more importantly, any rigorous interrogation of this claim. Such debate used to be stock-in-trade for political commentators, journalists and everyone else interested in the gulf between what we are told to believe and what is objectively true. In the case of ‘nice guy’ Starmer, anyone who actually takes the time to examine the facts and the evidence might be forgiven for quickly coming to the almost inescapable conclusion that Keir Starmer is neither good, honest nor moral.
If you don’t like these principles… I have others
As a human rights lawyer in the Balkans, Keir Starmer testified that ”Serbian forces carried out a sustained campaign of shelling, systematic expulsion, denial of food, water, electricity, sanitation and medical treatment” before concluding, “What the evidence before this court reveals is genocide.” As Prime Minister he asserted Israel had the right to target and withhold water and electricity from the civilian population of Gaza.
As a human rights lawyer here in the UK, Keir Starmer represented Andrea Needham, a member of the Seeds of Hope activist group whose members had previously broken into a military base and sabotaged military equipment bound for East Timor. As Prime Minister he presided over the proscription of Palestine Action and the arrest of ex-soldiers, elderly ladies and vicars who had the temerity to suggest they did not support genocide or their elected government’s participation in it.
While he delivered a Rivers of Blood-adjacent speech, Keir Starmer’s secretary of state for the Home Department has proposed far-reaching and, some might suggest, draconian changes to the way we process asylum seekers and immigrants after enacting new rules allowing the confiscation of telephones and valuables from hungry, tired and desperate people asking for our help. All of this an apparent dog-whistle to populist anti-immigrant sentiment that entirely fails to recognise the dignity or economic contribution of innocent people whose humanity is offered on the altar of political expediency.
And brown people, refugees, asylum seekers and economic immigrants are not the only targets of this Orwellian-style ‘two-year hate’. While campaigning, Keir Starmer declared ‘Trans women are women’, a position that no doubt helped secure him some much-needed progressive votes as he shuffled his personal vase towards number 10. As prime minister, he entirely flipped that script (one of innumerable 180-degree turns) as his government helped usher the UK from the top-ranking country in Europe to 22nd place in terms of trans rights and protections.
Hard choices looked a lot like austerity 2.0
Then there are the ‘hard choices’ this good, honest and moral man has asked us all to make. Hard choices that included taking winter heat from pensioners, stripping support from and creating ever more hostile environments for the needy, the poor and people with disabilities, while also picking fights with the people who grow our food. All ‘hard but essential choices’ Keir Starmer insisted we needed to make before any discussion of taxing the wealthy, closing tax loopholes or otherwise inconveniencing the rich architects of extraction capitalism who most benefit from our fast-growing inequality.
But, to give him credit, Starmer’s government did lift approximately half a million children out of poverty when it removed the two-child benefit cap. It took them 18 months to do that, and he removed the whip from MPs who tried to pressure him to do it sooner. Just like the famous (but possibly entirely fictional) Churchill quote about America, it seems Keir Starmer can be counted on to do the right thing – when all other options have been exhausted.
But ‘good’ and ‘moral’ are only two of the three mostly unquestioned human qualities attributed to our most recent ex-prime minister. The claim he is honest also remains unchallenged.
When you say nothing at all
During his campaign to be elected leader of the Labour party, Starmer said everything the left of his party hoped, needed and expected him to say. He cheerfully made promises and commitments to the left that he just as happily discarded as soon as he was elected leader. During the 2024 election his dishonesty was more in the nature of what he did not say than what he did, as he avoided making any commitments or taking any position other than his constant claim to be ‘a safe pair of grown-up hands’ after 14 years of increasing Conservative dysfunction.
But the real power behind his election was Labour Together, a right-leaning Labour think tank, fined by the Electoral Commission for breaching donation reporting rules while dragging their party significantly to the right and advocating for a purge of the left. After their funding issues came to light, Labour Together commissioned investigations into journalists who questioned its funding and other activities, a move widely criticised as an attempt to intimidate the press. Despite these efforts to purge the left and silence critics, once in power Keir assumed progressives and the left of his party had no choice but to still vote for him. All of this seems rather less than entirely good, honest or moral.
A numbers game
Starmer received over half a million fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn, a man he claimed friendship with in order to be elected leader, then purged from his party while thrice denying JC in the cold light of leadership dawn. His party received less than 34% of the total vote. Read that again, less than 34%.
In return for that almost shockingly low share of the vote, Labour secured an overwhelming parliamentary majority – not because the country voted for Starmer, but because they voted against the Conservatives. In a system designed to dissuade and disadvantage multi-party politics, people voted geographically and tactically; they lent their votes to whatever party they believed best positioned to get the Conservatives out. And it was not just the left voting this way. Reform also benefitted from this absolutely burning desire to bring a decade and a half of Conservative rule to an end.
Manager, not reformer
If anything (and in their own words), this was a mandate for real change. But, then Tom McTague, the Editor of the New Statesman, asked him directly about this need for the change he promised his party and the country. “You don’t think that the country is fundamentally broken. [You think] it can be fixed… with intelligent and stable leadership… [that] it doesn’t need to fundamentally change in a kind of Thatcherite way” The reply was as stark as it remains surprising: “No”.
He appeared to believe the country has simply been poorly served by a series of bad PMs and he could be the better manager we all wanted and needed. And why would he not believe that? After all, he just won a landslide election, secured incredible personal and political power and proved that ‘good guys’ can finish first – if they are dishonest enough, if they are ruthless enough.
Deceived progressives, betrayed and othered immigrants, trans people, welfare recipients, cold, old people, angry farmers and 30,000 Gazans would agree that Keir Starmer is not a good, honest or moral man.
And perhaps we really don’t need a ‘good’ man – certainly not one wielding such incredible power while seeming to have so little idea what to do with it.
What we do need is a massive shift in how we vote, how we manage our economy, how we talk about, deal with and view each other and how we shape a changing country in a changing world.
And, most of all, we need to stop simply ‘receiving wisdom’ and start demanding leaders who actually have it.
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