Labour starts 2025 as that rare thing: a stable centre-left government. Look elsewhere: the US Democrats have been routed and progressives in Germany, Canada and Australia are facing defeat this year.
Why, then, does Keir Starmer’s administration feel precarious? In part because of this global Great Moving Right Show – and the belief that the UK will be the next domino to fall. For the past month, Westminster has been absorbed by the notion that Elon Musk will make Nigel Farage prime minister (a theory that has not aged well). A hyperactive media has yet to adjust to the reality of a government with a three-figure majority – a degree of parliamentary strength not seen since Tony Blair two decades ago.
But there are also more concrete reasons for Labour’s malaise. The government started life relatively unpopular – with the backing of just two in ten eligible voters – and has become more so with time. Though this does nothing to change its parliamentary dominance, it narrows its capacity for difficult decisions (witness the age-old deferral of social care reform).
Labour, as insiders freely admit, had a plan to win but not a plan to govern. Its task now resembles that of building a plane while attempting to fly it. Problems confront it from all sides: a stagnant economy, a crumbling public realm, 2.8 million people too sick to work.
In 2024, the government sought to blame its inheritance from the Conservatives. This message failed to resonate with voters who craved hope, not more despair. In 2025 – Starmer’s first full year in government – there will be nowhere to hide.
Among cabinet ministers there is deep anxiety over this June’s Spending Review, which will determine departmental budgets for at least three years. Wes Streeting’s colleagues look with envy at the £22.6bn awarded to the NHS last autumn. One argued this amount should never have been conceded without upfront reform, warning that the UK risked becoming “a health service with a country attached to it” (a fate Streeting himself has invoked).
Once Donald Trump returns to the White House on 20 January expect defence to compete with health as the most urgent priority. The UK and other Nato members will likely be tasked with spending at least 3 per cent of GDP on defence (up from 2.3 per cent in Britain’s case).
Should the economy fail to return to adequate growth, Rachel Reeves’ already invidious choices will become nightmarish. Labour, some insiders warn, will be forced to either break its promises on public services or those on tax. Were Starmer and Reeves not the closest Downing Street duo since David Cameron and George Osborne, there would be far more speculation over the Chancellor’s position (weakened by the unpopular winter fuel payment cuts).
For Labour, the defining midterm test will come next year with the Scottish and Welsh contests. But this year’s local elections on 1 May will be an early barometer of the government’s political health. Inside No 10, some express confidence on the grounds that the Conservatives are defending 1,311 seats – won during Boris Johnson’s second honeymoon in 2021 – while Labour has just 350. But others warn that incumbency will be an inevitable drag on the party’s support. A potential by-election in Runcorn and Helsby – Labour’s Mike Amesbury has been charged with assault – may test whether Reform can justify the hype.
For all the talk of Farage’s forward march, the big picture remains an electoral landscape favourable to Labour. The right vote is split, the Liberal Democrats are entrenched as an anti-Tory southern force (likened by one observer to “a cuddly Lega Nord”) and the left is marginalised. Until this changes, Starmer has a path to re-election – regardless of a shrunken vote share.
In 2024, the Prime Minister showed that he can act as a crisis manager. The summer riots were contained and he self-corrected by replacing Sue Gray with Morgan McSweeney as his chief of staff. But little Starmer has said or done has overcome the gnawing sense that Britain is a country in decline. In 2025, his task is to make hope credible once more.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: Why the American right loathes modern Britain]
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