Three months after a historic election victory, it felt like the downpour at the Labour Party\u2019s conference would never end. <\/p>\n
Lawmakers and officials in Britain\u2019s new governing party have been trudging through a massive conference center in Liverpool, northwest England since Sunday in sodden suits, a rumbling River Mersey as their backdrop, for the group\u2019s first set-piece event as a governing party in 15 years. <\/p>\n
It was supposed to feel like a celebration. Prime Minister Keir Starmer touted July\u2019s gigantic electoral landslide in his keynote speech on Tuesday, telling his party: \u201cPeople said we couldn\u2019t do it, but we did.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the gathering was dampened by more than the weather. Like Britain\u2019s rather fickle summer, Starmer\u2019s honeymoon is a distant memory. <\/p>\n
A string of negative stories \u2013 about ministers accepting gifts and handouts, and reported conflict within Starmer\u2019s top team \u2013 has clashed uncomfortably with a set of joyless policy decisions aimed at stabilizing Britain\u2019s strapped finances, many of which go further and deeper than some inside the party expected when they promised a platform of change during the summer election campaign. <\/p>\n
It means Britain\u2019s new prime minister is already deeply unpopular with the public, according to a batch of unflattering opinion polls that landed with a thud as Labour\u2019s conference began. <\/p>\n
And while his lawmakers are broadly behind his disciplined agenda, questions are percolating there too about his political judgment and ability to keep his government on message. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt has felt a bit blunt,\u201d a Labour Member of Parliament admitted after Starmer\u2019s speech Tuesday, summing up the sentiment across much of conference. \u201cIt should have been more exciting,\u201d a longtime Labour activist complained. <\/p>\n
Starmer dangled a sliver of optimism in his speech Tuesday \u2013 promising the country \u201clight at the end of this tunnel\u201d \u2013 and in an effort to underline the rare display of cheer, the sun did finally emerge outside a short while later. <\/p>\n
The speech was an important hurdle for Starmer, who needed to reclaim the reputation for focus, diligence and honesty that he spent four years building, only to see seriously fractured in three months. <\/p>\n
But he nonetheless begins the unenviable mission of boosting Britain\u2019s limp economic growth, and reviving its tired public services, with a fragile coalition of public support. <\/p>\n
Starmer has insisted the latter issue will need a decade to truly fix. Unfortunately, the realities of governing are beginning to bite the Labour Party \u2013 and it is likely he will need to show some returns far sooner. <\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s conference was trailed by a series of stories that felt uncomfortably similar to the sleaze scandals that dogged previous Conservative administrations. <\/p>\n
Public records showed that Starmer had accepted tens of thousands of pounds in gifts from a key financial donor, including money for clothes and glasses. He had also watched his Arsenal soccer team from a hospitality box and accepted four tickets to Taylor Swift\u2019s Eras Tour concert at Wembley Stadium, worth \u00a34,000 ($5,300). <\/p>\n
The donations are not unique for British leaders. But they were particularly surprising \u2013 and damaging \u2013 for a prime minister who spent four years painting himself as an antidote to the cronyism and coziness with donors displayed by consecutive Tory prime ministers. <\/p>\n
No rules have been broken by Starmer or his team, but little common sense has been displayed either, and his lawmakers have noticed. <\/p>\n
Maskell said the decision to take gifts and donations showed \u201cpoor political and personal judgment.\u201d She is one of few Labour MPs to publicly criticize the front bench but said she is \u201cnot alone\u201d among parliamentary colleagues \u2013 the group that can ultimately decide Starmer\u2019s fate were a movement to emerge against him. <\/p>\n
The donations row was handled badly \u2013 Starmer naively fronted a reception celebrating London Fashion Week just hours after news emerged that a donor had bought his wife clothes \u2013 but it was especially harmful because it coincided awkwardly with a cut to the Winter Fuel Payment, an allowance given to retirees, to help with utilities bills. <\/p>\n
The move to limit that benefit to those already in receipt of state support was opposed by dozens of Labour MPs, and was controversial in a country still dragging itself through a lingering cost of living crisis. <\/p>\n
Maskell said she had been \u201csickened\u201d by the timing. \u201cPeople are hearing that (ministers) are getting donated clothes, and yet they haven\u2019t got warmth themselves,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The \u201cone rule for them, another for everyone else\u201d slogan that Starmer attached to Boris Johnson\u2019s premiership became the sentiment that, above any other, caused that Conservative leader \u2013 himself fresh off a landslide election win \u2013 to be dumped from office two years ago. <\/p>\n
Starmer will be desperate to stop it from infecting his premiership too. He told conference attendees Tuesday that rebuilding the country would be \u201ctough in the short-term,\u201d but \u201cwe\u2019re all in it together\u201d \u2013 and that framing will likely be recycled in the coming weeks as he seeks to restore a reputation for integrity that was so valuable in July. <\/p>\n
Far beyond the heavily secured gates of Labour\u2019s conference, the country is casting its judgment as well. <\/p>\n
The combination of Labour\u2019s miserabilist message on public finances with the costly scandal over its own donations has contributed to an astonishing collapse in Starmer\u2019s popularity since his election win. An opinion poll published by Opinium on Sunday found his net approval rating had dropped to the same depths as Rishi Sunak, the former Tory prime minister that Starmer routed at the ballot box 12 weeks ago. <\/p>\n
He pointed to a sparsely detailed economic agenda, adding: \u201cThe PM and chancellor have labored on the tough decisions, but given us relatively limited information about what those will look like. The almost sole focus on Winter Fuel Payments has made the government look like it\u2019s unfair and out of touch.\u201d <\/p>\n
And they have already been forced to lighten their tone, after the barrage of gloom threatened to undermine confidence in Britain\u2019s economy. Reeves, in her keynote speech on Monday, told attendees that \u201cBritain\u2019s best days lie ahead,\u201d a useful pick-me-up after months weeks of somber addresses that blamed the previous Conservative governments for mismanaging public services and for a financial \u201cblack hole\u201d that Labour said it discovered after taking office,but failed to hit a hopeful tone for the years ahead. <\/p>\n
More painful measures are expected when Chancellor Rachel Reeves outlines the government\u2019s budget next month. Starmer and Reeves have styled themselves as tough, frugal guardians of the public purse, but they are facing pressure to improve their financial offer for Britain\u2019s public services, including a National Health Service (NHS) that was described in a damning review this month as being in \u201ccritical condition.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a helpfully timed piece of good news, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Wednesday that it now expects Britain to log faster economic growth than the eurozone this year, predicting an expansion of 1.1%. <\/p>\n
Starmer, who left Liverpool for the United Nations General Assembly in New York, will consider the week a relative success; the party managed to refocus the political narrative on its core message after leaks and missteps threw it off course. Starmer\u2019s speech was was light on fresh content but a heckler was calmly removed and the key messages were confidently delivered. <\/p>\n
But a premiership can only survive on doom and gloom for so long, and patience is already wearing thin among much of the wider party. <\/p>\n
An MP whose surprise victory in July\u2019s election was illustrative of Labour\u2019s huge success in virtually every pocket of the country was already thinking about what they could run on in five years\u2019 time. \u201cIt\u2019s all very well saying it will take a decade,\u201d they said. \u201cBut where are the tangibles?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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