On 5 July 2025, Sir Keir (Rodney) Starmer completed his first year as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. His journey to the top was concluded by the General Election of 4 July 2024, when the Labour Party won 412 seats (to 121 for the Conservatives and 72 for the Liberal Democrats)- 211 seats more than in the previous General Election of December 2019, but with only 34% of the total vote. A fractious, and increasingly dysfunctional, Conservative Party paid the ultimate price at the polls, even as many newly-elected Labour MPs only scraped through with the tightest of margins and Starmer’s majority fell in his own constituency. Such a large overall Labour parliamentary majority has only previously been achieved by Tony Blair, in 1997 and 2001. The Labour Party was once again the largest party in England and Scotland, in what was partly a protest vote against the ruling Conservatives. The results, however, indicated widespread dissatisfaction with Britain’s two-party political system and confirmed the growing popularity of the Reform Party.
Despite a promising start, Starmer has failed to capitalise on his working majority of 156 in the House of Commons. His early days in office were complicated by his willingness to accept gifts (clothes, eyeglasses) and accommodation from Labour peer Waheed Alli, a major Party donor. He had also benefited from various free tickets to music concerts and football matches. Starmer’s personal popularity has since fallen to the lowest level ever reached by any British prime minister at the end of the first year in office. By May 2025, only 23% of Britons favoured Starmer, and for the first time he had a net negative approval rating among Labour voters. According to some commentators, he may have sunk to such depths that any recovery is near-impossible.
Starmer inherited a stagnating economy, with a disputed £22 billion “hole” in the public finances, underperforming public services, and high net immigration. But his attempts to blame the Conservatives for “the worst inheritance since the Second World War” appear to have back-fired, as have his attempts to sell a vision of “blood, sweat, and tears” to the British public. Pessimistic messages from the top have only deepened the gloom in what is considered by many to be a “broken” nation.
The consensus seems to be that Starmer lacks an overarching vision, and that it can be hard to decipher where he stands on many of the major issues of the day. He tends to backtrack in the face of continuing negative feedback, and seems to be gradually moving to the right of the political spectrum- to face up to the growing challenge from the Reform Party, to the dismay of many Labour Party members. The government’s welfare-reform strategy, in particular, has not been well thought out, forcing three humiliating U-turns in June 2025 alone, largely in response to pressure from his own backbenchers. Cuts to Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners who are not in receipt of means-tested benefits have been reversed. Planned adjustments to the system for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) have been abandoned. The proposed £5 billion cuts in welfare spending have been dropped, creating difficulties for the Chancellor’s spending plans and raising the spectre of increased taxes in the autumn to support her fiscal rules. Among other changes in direction, Starmer has dropped his opposition to a national inquiry into grooming gangs. In his defence, some consider this openness to change demonstrates a certain flexibility of approach, which is in keeping with “pragmatic leadership.”
Some headway has been made in the NHS, with falling waiting lists and, most recently, with the launch of a 10 Year Health Plan for England on 3 July 2025, focused on digital transformation, preventive care, and care closer to home. Free school meals are being expanded to 500,000 more children by 2029, while free breakfast clubs are coming to primary schools. Ambitious housebuilding targets for an additional 1.5 million homes in England by 2029 have been backed up by a pledge to reform the planning laws, but is seems unlikely to come to fruition the way things are. Public-sector pay disputes, including junior doctors’ strikes, have been settled with the unions for the time at least, and at some cost, but there is no guarantee against the resumption of industrial action. On the other hand, increases to employers’ National Insurance contributions have justifiably invited the wrath of small- and medium-sized business owners, who are also predictably aggrieved by amendments to workers’ rights. It is has proved difficult, at times, to get the balance right. Clamping down on the race riots of summer 2024, for example, led to accusations of “two-tier policing” and to the premature release of some prisoners to make way for the rioters.
Starmer has had more success on the international arena, where he has negotiated unexciting trade deals with the US, India, and the EU, and has intervened, to limited effect, in the Israel-Hamas and the Russia-Ukraine conflicts. In an unlikely meeting of the hearts, driven by “shared values”, he appears to have bonded successfully with President Donald Trump, who uses personal relationships to guide his approach to matters of State.
Keir Starmer was a relatively late entrant to the world of active politics, having been called to the Bar in 1987 and then working as a barrister, specialising in human rights, between 1987 and 2008. In 1990, he was a founding member of Doughty Street Chambers in London. Starmer later served in an administrative capacity as Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, overseeing criminal prosecution in England and Wales. He first became a Labour parliamentary candidate, aged 52, in December 2014, and was elected MP for Holborn and St. Pancras shortly after, in 2015. He served under Jeremy Corbyn as shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from 2016 until 2020, before taking over as leader of the Labour Party in April 2020. As he has often reminded us, Starmer has solid working-class roots. His father, Rodney, ran the Oxted Tool Company in Surrey, and was a cycling enthusiast, while his mother, Josephine, a nurse, died of Still’s disease when Kier was just 13. Starmer went to Reigate Grammar School (1974-1981) after passing the eleven-plus examination. The school turned into an independent, fee-paying school in September 1976, during his third academic year, but Starmer stayed on free of charge. He became the first member of his family to attend university, studying law at Leeds and Oxford Universities. The rest was to follow, as outlined above.
Starmer has four years remaining at his disposal, which is a considerable bonus when even a week is a long time in politics. Margaret Thatcher may have been unpopular in her first years in office, becoming Britain’s most unpopular Prime Minister since World War Two by December 1981, but the lady who was “not for turning” still went on to dominate British politics for the rest of the decade. Unlike Thatcher, however, Starmer lacks charisma and conviction, at times comes out as a wooden public speaker and debater, and frequently plays his cards quite close to his chest. His publicity machine seems ineffectual in comparison with Tony Blair’s mighty PR machine, and his achievements have not been trumpeted loud enough. While Starmer may have pulled Labour out of the jaws of defeat in 2019 to a landslide victory in 2024, regaining the trust and goodwill of the British public after just a year in power is proving an uphill task, especially when short-term expectations are so high and most voters have little interest in longer- term issues. It seems unfair, nonetheless, to seek the overnight reversal of the effects of 14 years of Conservative rule in just a year. Better decision-making, a better reading of the public’s priorities, and a major rethink of the government’s economic strategy and fiscal rules may yet give Starmer a second chance to restore the nation’s, as well as his own, fortunes.
Ashis Banerjee