Keir Starmer Is “Highly Capable” But Needs A Stronger “Message”, Says Anthony Seldon

4 min read12 min

Assessing Starmer’s first six months in power, Seldon said he is a “highly capable” leader but sorely lacks an “overall message” about what he wants to achieve. He added that the Prime Minister should use the Christmas break to have a “rethink” about how to do his job more effectively.

Seen as one of the UK’s foremost political historians, Seldon has written biographies about every prime minister since John Mayor. He spoke to PoliticsHome as Westminster prepares to wind down for the festive break and as Starmer’s time in office passes six months. 

Starmer led Labour to a historic victory at the 4 July General Election, reversing the party’s devasting 2019 defeat to secure a 174-seat House of Commons majority.

Since then, however, the Prime Minister’s ratings and those of Labour have fallen sharply, and even some Labour MPs are concerned about the Government’s performance six months on from the party’s landslide win.

According to Seldon, Starmer’s No10 operation needs “more maturity” and “experience”. 

“You need a far, far stronger No10, which has a lot more know-how about how Whitehall works, how the Treasury works. [It should be] a lot less tribal and a lot less reactive…

“There needs to be more maturity and experience in Downing Street.

“There hasn’t been another Labour premiership which has begun so naively, not appointing key people [while] so many very capable people are waiting to come in.”

Starmer has already reshuffled his most senior people since entering No10. In October Sue Gray resigned as his chief of staff and was quickly replaced by the PM’s long-time ally Morgan McSweeney — a move seen as an attempt to inject more political nous into Downing Street.

Starmer joked about the early disruption while hosting journalists in No10 Wednesday evening. In his own seven days of Christmas (Chancellor Rachel Reeves “refused to pay” for twelve days, the Prime Minister quipped), the penultimate line was “two chiefs of staff”.

He has also brought in James Lyons, a former Westminster journalist who went on to handle media for the NHS and TikTok, to lead a revamped strategic communications unit.

According to Seldon, communications is where Starmer’s No10 has been particularly lacking.

“He needs to produce an overall message, which at the moment is far too scattered,” he said.

Seldon said Starmer’s “strongest moment” since becoming Prime Minister was his response to the riots that followed the Southport stabbings, but his “weakest” was comments he made about the civil service in a speech at the beginning of this month. The PM said too many people in Whitehall were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”. 

“The civil service is in drastic [need of] reform, but you don’t denigrate the people…

“He’s got to stop blaming other people and provide more leadership.

“Good leaders don’t blame other people,” Seldon told PoliticsHome.

The historian said this festive break was a “critical” opportunity for Starmer to “rethink how he’s doing the job”.

This, Seldon said, should include realising that the most effective prime ministers leave day-to-day micro-management to others and focus instead on overall strategy.

“He’s all over the place,” he said.

“He needs to study history more to realise prime ministers do less, not more. They’re strategists, not tacticians.

“He doesn’t need to do all the stock-taking. He doesn’t need to be doing the micro-management.

“He needs to be the main strategist, as the most effective prime ministers have.

“[Tony] Blair became less effective — not more — when he was doing all the delivery unit work.”

Seldon said Starmer has “many” clear strengths and that he should think about how he can better “leverage” them in 2025.

“He’s a serious figure after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, that’s a good thing.

“He’s highly capable, he’s decisive, he’s ruthless. He has many of the qualities that a prime minister needs to have. If he can find a way to compensate more for those things, there’s no reason why he can’t go on and be the prime minister that Britain needs to have.”

He continued: “If the story is positive, if he’s seen to be competent and effective and a bit more human, a bit more humane, then people will warm to him more and will learn to trust him more.”

Seldon said Starmer, who in July was the first Labour leader to win a general election in nearly 20 years, is “not charismatic” like former Labour prime ministers Blair and Harold Wilson were, “but neither was Clement Atlee, and Atlee was one of the most successful prime ministers”.

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