There is something increasingly puzzling – and politically dangerous – about the way that Keir Starmer governs. It is not simply that things go wrong on his watch; every Prime Minister faces crisis, missteps, and the odd unforced error. It is that, time and again, Starmer appears oddly detached from the very events shaping his premiership. As if politics and government are things that happen to him, rather than things he actively directs.
That sense of detachment is beginning to harden into something more troubling: a complete lack of curiosity.
Effective leadership demands an almost relentless inquisitiveness – a desire to know what is happening, why it is happening, and what might be coming next. It requires a Prime Minister to probe, to challenge, to test assumptions, and, crucially, to anticipate problems before they spiral. Starmer, by contrast, too often looks like a man content to sail above the fray – until, inevitably, he is dragged under by a storm he neither saw coming nor seems prepared to confront.
We have seen this pattern repeat itself. Controversies emerge, decisions. Unravel, narratives take hold – and Downing Street appears on the back foot. The sense is not of a government firmly in control, but of one constantly scrambling to catch up with events. That is not simply a communications failure; it speaks to something deeper about how power is being exercised.
Of course, there will be those who argue that this is a deliberate style, that Starmer is seeking to rise above the noise, to avoid the hyperactive, personality-driven politics of recent years. That he is, in effect, trying to de-dramatise the office of Prime Minister. If so, it isn’t working.
Because the vacuum created by that approach does not remain empty for long. It is filled by speculation, by confusion, and by opponents who are only too happy to define the narrative in his absence. Leadership is not about constant noise-but it is about presence. And increasingly, that presence feels lacking. More fundamentally, there is a difference between calm authority and passive drift. The former reassures; the latter unnerves. At present, Starmer is very much in the second category.
This matters not just for his own political fortunes, but much more importantly for the country. Britain faces complex, interconnected challenges-from public services under strain to an uncertain global landscape. These are not issues that can be managed on autopilot. They require a Prime Minister who is deeply engaged, intellectually curious, and firmly in command of the detail.
Which brings us to the uncomfortable question now hanging over his premiership: how much longer can this continue?
Whatever his reasoning, whatever the explanations offered by allies, whatever the attempts to buy time – there comes a point when the cumulative weight of events becomes impossible to ignore. Starmer must surely know that he is now operating on borrowed time. Or perhaps – and this is the most worrying possibility of all – he is waiting for someone to tell him that too.
Lib Dems holding firm as polling ticks up across the UK
There are quietly encouraging signs for the Liberal Democrats as new polling suggests support is ticking upwards across Great Britain. While much of the national conversation remains dominated the decline of Labour and the Tories and the apparent rise of Reform and the Greens, we Lib Dems are once again demonstrating our resilience in what is now genuinely a multi-party political era.
In Scotland and Wales, even despite a somewhat faltering campaign at times in the latter, the party is showing signs of renewed competitiveness, with modest but meaningful gains predicted that could translate into real representation. Meanwhile, in parts of England – particularly in traditional areas of local strength – the numbers point towards further consolidation and potential breakthroughs on May 7th.
This is not a surge, it is true, but in a fragmented political landscape, holding your ground is half the battle. The Lib Dems are doing just that – and more. Steady progress, smart targeting, and a clear liberal voice means the party remains firmly in the game.
A welcome reset at Stonewall
Former Labour leader in Scotland, Kezia Dugdale, brings a thoughtful, inclusive approach to her new role as the Chair of Stonewall. With LGBT+ rights – especially for trans and non-binary people – still under sustained pressure, her leadership comes at a crucial moment.
There is much work to do, and it matters.
* Mathew Hulbert is a former Councillor, is a regular commentator on TV and Radio, and is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.
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14 Comments
Vetting is not about judging the character of the candidate, it’s done to find out if there is anything in his past which might come back to bite him. Judging Mandelson’s flawed character had already been done by Starmer, who’d announced the appointment before the vetting took place. Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was in the public domain, and the vetting process wouldn’t have known what further revelations were in the Epstein papers, most tellingly, a photograph of him in his underpants, literally showing him caught with his trousers down.
Everyone in the House of Commons yesterday knew one thing for a fact. Starmer was throwing Olly Robinson under the bus to save his own skin. I will have to wait and see if that comes out when Robinson answers questions later this morning; by the time you read this, that may have become more apparent, but unceremoniously sacking someone who was doing his job (allowing his political masters to have the ambassador of their choice) is not likely to end well for Starmer – and nor should it.
At 82 years old I’m struggling to remember a time when ‘Events’ rather than prime ministers, DIDN’T run this country.. From Eden’s ‘Suez’, through MacMillan’s, “Events, dear boy, events” to Johnson’s lurching and Truss’s ‘Liz of the 49 days’..
In fact, Thatcher’s refusal to acknowledge changing events was a ‘time bomb’ leading to disaster..
It’s not in my nature to be fair to Keir Starmer, but lost in all this is that Mandelson was ideally equipped to be schmoozing with supreme narcissist Donald J. Trump on behalf of the UK. There may have been career diplomats who could have done the job better, but as a political appointments go, it was a good one. No-one could have predicted the chain of events which tainted Mandelson with the exploitation of young girls, something he, of course, wouldn’t have been involved in. Sucking up to rich people like Epstein has been one of Mandelson’s known character flaws for decades, and wouldn’t have looked like a skeleton in the cupboard to a vetting committee.
In a typically brazen act of self-preservation, Starmer prevented Andy Burnham from getting into the House of Commons last year, and that will help delay the arrival of ‘men in grey suits’ (or women) at the door of number ten. There is no obvious successor, unless Wes Streeting suddenly transforms himself into a credible candidate for prime minister.
However, as may be clear from previous posts I’ve made in the LDV, I would regard it a travesty if the man who turned a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza loses his job over something as trivial as Peter Mandelson’s poor choice of friends. Regarding Mandelson himself, I wonder if he’s still capable of being “intensely relaxed”, a deliberate oxymoron, but something he may have more time to explore now his political career is (presumably) over.
@Andy Daer 21st Apr ’26 – 7:34am…
I, too, have absolutely no respect for Starmer over his handling of Israel’s continuing genocide and, if he has deliberately misled parliament, he should resign..
However, I have even less respect for those, who defended Johnson through his blatant lies, and are now those shouting the loudest, “Starmer must go”
As for Anderson’s contribution; a staged event! ..30p Lee KNEW that the word ‘Liar’ would get him asked to leave.. Of course, Farage has stayed rather quiet.. Mind you, as he is on record saying that although he “might disagree with Mandelson on his politics, but he’s a very intelligent man” and would be good choice for ambassador.’ and how he could assist Mandelson with Trump.. Now he pretends he’s never heard of either of them!
Like Andy, I am not inclined to be fair to Starmer; I was a member of the Labour Party when he lied through his teeth (look up “Ten Policy Pledges”) to gain the leadership.
But I just don’t get the idea that preventing Burnham from losing the by-election to Hannah Spencer was some sort of Machiavellian plot by Starmer. The basic rule is that if you are an elected Mayor, you don’t stand as a Labour Parliamentary candidate; and the reason’s obvious. Saying to the electorate “You voted to have me as Mayor for four years. Terribly sorry, chaps, but something more interesting has come up – and here’s a bill for £5 million for an election to choose my replacement” is just plain rude.
The NEC had to ask themselves whether there was a good reason for disapplying the general rule. They correctly concluded that there wasn’t.
Burnham would probably have done better than Angeliki Stogia, but I don’t believe he’d have won the by-election. He would have been dogged by “£5 million! £5 million” wherever he went.
Also like Andy, I can see why Starmer thought Mandelson might be a good pick to deal with the lunatic in the White House. But he must have known it was a high-risk choice, and he really ought to have had enough sense of self-preservation to check out the vetting before making the public announcement.
Matthew is absolutely right to praise Kezia Dugdale’s “thoughtful, inclusive approach to her new role as the Chair of Stonewall”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/19/things-could-go-backwards-kezia-dugdale-on-safety-lgbtq-rights-and-the-future-of-stonewall
So refreshing – and unusual – to see somebody who can recognise that people on both sides of this bitter confict can have valid interests and concerns. So much better than what most participants in this “debate” do, which is to demonise the other side.
Any why should I, an old straight man, think I might have anything worthwhile to say on this subject? Because the wider effect of the Great Toilet Wars is to diminish the standing of centrist and leftist politicians with the broader public. Because so many voters rightly want to see politicians stop fighting personal identity battles with each other, and start sorting out the cost of living.
” I was a member of the Labour Party when he lied through his teeth (look up “Ten Policy Pledges”) to gain the leadership.”
Me too. So it’s good to see someone other than myself making this point. None of the other parties made use of this free ammunition during the 2024 electoral campaign. Lib Dems just about ignored it all. Even now there’s still some useful stuff in these “pledges”. For example, the fourth one is a commitment to “Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act”.
What happened to that?
Starmer has the excuse of economic difficulties on some of his pledges but there can’t be any such justification on this one. Even if we disagree with the introduction of such an Act we can still call out Starmer for a lack of integrity. Especially when his loyalists claim otherwise.
https://www.chartist.org.uk/how-is-starmer-doing/
Peter, I suspect that the Lib Dems didn’t use this ammunition because they were too busy targeting the Tories; the Tories didn’t because they were running thf most spectacularly incompetent campaign in decades
I imagine that having one crony of Epstein buddying up to another might have seemed to some to be a good idea, but since the former had form with poor judgement and a history of trying to make friends with the uber rich, the risk was always too great and should have been seen as such.
It’s not just the vetting problem. Starmer, and the Labour Party, had no plan for government when they won the 2024 election and without a plan cockups are inevitable. The time since 2024 has been riddled with cockups and u-turns precisely because there is no plan. I am no fan of Polly Toynbee, but she has said that there is no point ditching Starmer unless you bring forward serious plans to implement the sort of changes our country needs and ditch the churn that passes for government under Starmer. Someone said recently on Blue Sky that the big problem is we have Starmer rather than a Prime Minister.
Ed Davey rightly called on hom to resign. Our country cannot afford much more of this incompetent person in No. 10.
It would have made some sense, at least to those who don’t mind a degree of obsequiousness, to give Mandelson the job of UK amabassador to the US if there was some indication that Starmer’s choice would have been met with some approval by the Trump adminsistration. However there wasn’t.
The BBC reported “Mr LaCivita, who was a co-campaign manager for Trump’s presidential election bid, criticised the British government’s decision saying it was replacing a ‘professional universally respected ambo [Karen Pierce] with an absolute moron’.”
So what was the reason for Starmer’s decision?
Those of us who have taken an interest in the goings on in the Labour Party over the last few years and have perhaps read Paul Holden’s excellent book ‘The Fraud’ don’t have any trouble joining up the dots. Well before the last election Starmer would have promised McSweeney he would be his chief of staff at number 10 and also promised a Mandelson a suitable plum job. In each case it was for their services in propelling him into the PM role.
They trio were only interested in winning, smashing the left in the Labour Party, and has Mick has just pointed out, they didn’t have any real plan for what to do once they had won office.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyx9kplge8o
Apparently Olly Robbins has said there has been general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts (*).
This exactly the kind of politicisation of the civil service (in this case the specialised diplomatic service) that Conservatives/Reform imply they want when they criticise the “Blob”.
(*) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/21/foreign-office-asked-to-find-role-senior-starmer-aide-matthew-doyle-olly-robbins-peter-mandelson
This story isn’t about Epstein. Robbins has told us that. It’s about cronyism.
Starmer could have taken advice and had Mandelson vetted before appointment. But that would have carried the risk that Mandelson, an important Labour crony in a powerful position, could have lost the appointment he demanded. That scared Starmer.
Starmer knows the weakness of his position. He is a cardboard figure, created by “Labour Together” as a means of gettting Corbyn out. Weak leaders, like Boris and Starmer, cannot risk thwarting their cronies.
Weak leaders – and weak managers everywhere – work to the mantra “Don’t bring me problems – Bring me solutions!”
That means “When there is dirty work to be done, you the underling must do it. If it goes wrong, you are the one who will be fired, not me. If you don’t accept that command, I can fire you right now! So, do the dirty work, underling. Take the risk of being found out. And make sure I don’t get told, so that I can’t be blamed!”
“Further – I am going to lay down these demands in the abstract, before any actual crisis arises. That way, I keep clear of any come-back. Hey, my “Bring me solutions” mantra sounds nice and innocuous, if you don’t know what it actually means!”
This often works, for bad managers within closed organisational environments. Sadly for Starmer, it won’t work in the glare of publicity.
It’s about all those things, David et al, but for me the crucial point now is that Starmer chose to save his own bacon by sacrificing a good man. It wasn’t even necessary (he would have survived a bit of criticism over Mandelson), and it showed callous disregard for Olly Robinson, who seems to have been a very accomplished civil servant. Another consequence is that the civil service is now at war with the executive at number ten.
Starmer in effect told parliament today he was going to fight on because he thinks he is uniquely qualified to lead the country to some kind sunlight uplands. Presumably that’s why it’s OK to dump lesser mortals in the rubbish bin.