Keir Starmer’s biggest success is that for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, Labour have a leader with decent approval ratings. His personal ratings are better than David Cameron’s at an equivalent period and beaten only by Tony Blair’s (albeit quite comfortably beaten by Blair’s). His biggest failure, however, is that Labour’s ratings on economic competence have remained where they have been since the financial crisis.
His big speech on the economy had two main tasks: to set out the broad outline of Labour economic thinking under his leadership and to establish the beginnings of a plan to rebuild its reputation for economic credibility. It did the former better than the latter: it continued the approach set out in Anneliese Dodds’ Mais Lecture, to essentially offer orthodox social democracy in a reassuring tone of voice. But it’s less clear what Starmer’s plan is for how to address Labour’s credibility problem on the economy.
Content from our partners
