‘Sir Keir Starmer has broken all records for unpopularity for a new administration’

• IT’S been a hectic 100 days, or almost 100 days, so it seems a good time for a quick assessment of the new Labour administration under Sir Keir Starmer and how well they have lived up to the expectations of the 20 per cent of the eligible United Kingdom electorate who voted for them.

The Labour Party landslide was a result of the total collapse of the Conservative vote where previous voters either stayed home, or voted Reform or another party.

As we know well, in his own backyard of Holborn and St Pancras, Starmer lost almost
50 per cent of his 2019 number of voters, and the independent anti-war and anti-austerity candidate Andrew Feinstein gained over 18 per cent of the votes cast, retaining his deposit and finishing second.

The Conservative collapse was caused by a general loss of confidence in their policies.
Starmer’s Labour were elected on a slogan of change, yet they appear to have retained the Tory policies that were so unpopular.

In the less than 100 days, the Starmer regime: pledged no action on the two-child benefit cap, withdrew the winter heating payment for pensioners, U-turned on wealth taxes, and actions on non-doms, and announced a £22billion investment in unproven carbon-capture technology, spoke of increasing tuition fees, and – worst of all – continued full support for the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, Palestine, and now Lebanon.

And, of course, Starmer has broken all records for unpopularity for a new administration, where in some polls he is even less popular than the previous prime minister Rishi Sunak was.

And we haven’t even mentioned the donations, free clothes and the allegations of dishonesty and dissembling that accompanied them.

So, all in all, the signs are that this will be a one-term administration, that will open the door to the radical right, either in the form of a revitalised Tory party, or that other media favourite, Nigel Farage.

This won’t be the first time that Starmer has left the door open for the right.

We all remember that it was his determination that a second European Union referendum be Labour policy in 2019, which led to Boris Johnson’s election as prime minister and all that followed.

GARETH MURPHY, NW5