My teenage son, who cast his first vote (for Labour) last week, surprised me yesterday by announcing that he had been paying attention to political developments over the last few days. “I think Starmer is doing a pretty good job,” he said, and I immediately felt uneasy, worried that he might emulate his father’s mistakes and decide to pursue a political career.
But I agree with him. Because it is true. Our new prime minister has settled into his new job very well. Who knows what concerns are being expressed behind that famous black door in the privacy of his Downing Street flat? But from an observer’s perspective, Starmer looks relaxed, confident and seems to be bringing a sure touch to the job of being the country’s helmsman.
It is as good a start as anyone could have hoped for after the chaos of Thursday night and the chaos in government over the last decade. Starmer looks and acts like a grown-up and having a grown-up at the head of government feels like a completely new experience.
In the early days of any new government, it is the appointments, rather than the policy initiatives, that are the telltale signs of where the new administration is headed. And at least a few of Starmer’s new ministers, especially those outside his own MPs, tell us that this is someone who is in as much of a hurry to change the country as he is to change his party as he is to change the opposition leader. The appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister and (Lord) Peter Hendy’s new role as rail minister are strong indications that Starmer wants people to lead policy in areas where they actually have some expertise. OK, it will never catch on, but it is encouraging nonetheless.
But mistakes have already been made. The refusal of many observers (including Labour supporters) to believe that the Prime Minister would commit to making David Lammy foreign secretary was a telling example of their confidence in Starmer’s common sense and political judgement. But the Prime Minister disappointed them and the rest of the country by promoting the Tottenham MP to one of the four top government posts. Perhaps Starmer believed that he could not afford to be seen to belittle another London MP because he refused to appoint Emily Thornberry to the cabinet (another smart move, by the way).
Whatever the reason, we now have a foreign minister who knows that his counterparts in Moscow, Beijing and Washington change their minds on fundamental issues such as nuclear deterrence depending on which way the political winds are blowing and who assumes the position (unilateral or hawkish) that will best advance his personal career prospects.
In the run-up to the general election and during the election campaign, Starmer appeared to be moving towards a more positive stance on women’s rights, a marked departure from the days when he criticised one of his own MPs for suggesting that only women have cervixes and even agreed with Tony Blair’s view that “men have penises and women have vaginas” (although no female colleague of his said the same thing).
If there were any cynics who thought this was just a PR ploy, an attempt to promote two opposing views: “trans women are women” (as taught in the Stonewall catechism) and “women have the right to be in women-only spaces”, Starmer’s decision to appoint Anneliese Dodds as minister for women and equalities seems to have proven them right.
Dodds told the BBC that he could not define what a woman actually was. Women’s Hour last year, she said there were “different legal definitions of what a woman actually is.” When asked again, she said, “I think it depends on what the context is.”
If the minister responsible for protecting women’s rights can’t say what a woman really is, then prepare for Starmer to appoint a transport minister who can’t tell the difference between a Boeing 747 and the number 12 bus to Clapham.
But there has also been a major policy misstep, and given that this migration is taking place in a hotbed of trouble, it could be taken as a harbinger of trouble to come. The government, which has scrapped the Rwanda plan that Starmer had rejected as a deterrent, even though it was not yet in place when the election was called, has announced that 90,000 illegal immigrants who had been earmarked for a one-way journey to sunny climes will now be able to claim asylum in the UK. And as surely as eggs are eggs, the vast majority of them will be accepted as genuine refugees, desperate to escape the better weather, better food and high culture that typifies the hellish pit of northern France.
This has already been denounced as an “effective amnesty” by the new shadow home secretary, James Cleverly, and if it sees the Calais coastline as it is likely to, we can expect a boom season on Channel crossings this summer. If the government has a plan to stop the boats, it is already running out of time to implement it.
Starmer has made a good start. But he cannot afford to make more incompetent or party-mandated appointments to key government roles. And he certainly cannot allow the public to suspect that his government will adopt a “come and all” approach to illegal immigration. In the early months of a new administration, they are prepared to forgive much. But what he should be worried about is where the honeymoon ends.