Starmer Returns to Campaign Basics After a Rough First 100 Days

(Bloomberg) — When Keir Starmer summoned his new top team in Downing Street on Monday morning, there was little sign of the drama that had forced his new administration into an embarrassing reset hours earlier. An understated prime minister made introductions, and told aides to “crack on.”

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Yet what Starmer, who marks 100 (far from ideal) days in office on Saturday, wants is for his government to be anything but low-key, people familiar with the matter said. A flurry of announcements is planned to show voters he will deliver on the economy, National Health Service, migration and crime. Morgan McSweeney, his new chief of staff who came up with Labour’s election strategy, is charged with putting the administration on a permanent campaign footing.

The ramped up cadence, starting with billions of pounds of inward investment to be confirmed at a summit Starmer hosts in London next week, is designed to show 10 Downing Street has learned from its mistakes since Labour won power from the Conservatives at the July election. The strategy is to tell a more positive and retail-friendly story about the government’s policies, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private plans.

Starmer’s decision to oust his most senior aide, Sue Gray, in favor of McSweeney was seen as an admission that the premier was unhappy with how his team had transitioned from opposition to government, following a three-month period dominated by declining economic sentiment, cash-for-access allegations, infighting among aides and plummeting poll ratings.

An Ipsos survey released Friday showed a 13.5-point negative swing in Labour’s favorability since the election, while YouGov put the government’s approval rating at just 18%. The new operation led by McSweeney and his two deputies, long-standing Starmer aides Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson, will aim to be more political and build a strategy around what data and polling showed matters most to the swing voters who put Labour in power, the people said.

There are looming hurdles, not least what Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has warned will be a painful budget on Oct. 30. That’s made some in government skeptical their political situation will easily improve.

There’s an acceptance that change will not happen overnight, one Downing Street adviser said, but that Starmer’s office is determined to be able to show the second hundred days had gone better than the first. Another predicted less bickering among aides and a clampdown on the sorts of donations rows that contributed to Starmer’s plunging personal ratings.

Foreign visits, of which Starmer has made several in his short time in office, will have a clearer domestic narrative on economic growth, defense, security and irregular migration. The most important people the prime minister speaks to in Berlin are voters in Britain, one of the aides said. At home, expect Health Secretary Wes Streeting to become far more visible, one official said.

“Our research shows voters want the government laser-focused on turning the economy round and fixing the NHS,” said Jonathan Ashworth, chief executive of the Labour Together campaign group that McSweeney used to run. “It’s why both Rachel Reeves’ budget and Wes Streeting’s NHS reforms will be crucial moments in the weeks ahead.”

In Downing Street, staff said they had noticed a difference already under McSweeney. Whereas Gray — who allies said had been a victim of a palace coup — used to sign off every decision and who was described by two people as being secretive, things are moving through the system quicker, they said.

In a meeting of government aides late Tuesday, which senior staff from Labour’s party headquarters also attended as part of McSweeney’s campaign focus, Starmer’s new chief of staff warned colleagues not to be taken in by the pomp and ceremony of government. Their purpose, he said, was to do their best by the people who elected them — and to make sure they win the next election.

He also promised that issues over advisers’ pay — a sore point in Gray’s tenure — would be resolved before Christmas, people in the meeting said.

But the optimism that a new No. 10 operation will turn out to be a silver bullet is far from universal. Some Labour ministers, departmental aides and lawmakers made the point privately that McSweeney — who was in charge of Starmer’s political strategy while Gray ran the prime minister’s office — would have been central to the so-called doom and gloom economic narrative ahead of the budget that has been so widely criticized in the world of business.

He also failed to stop Reeves cutting a winter fuel benefit for pensioners, one person said, a policy seen widely as instrumental in the hit to Labour’s poll rating. Several ministers and aides called it alarming that Starmer had appeared to reward those who had been briefing against Gray in the media.

Allies of Gray have also hit back at the narrative about her. The problems in Downing Street went beyond the chief of staff job, one said, describing the structure of Starmer’s team as messy. The premier needs someone senior to advise him on the economy to avoid outsourcing things like the winter fuel cut to Reeves, and more people with experience of governing in general, they said.

Concern about the departure of Gray, a senior civil servant chosen by Starmer for her knowledge of how government works, goes beyond Labour. European Union officials have also questioned what it means for Starmer’s relations with Europe. While Gray had taken a lead role in improving ties between the UK and the bloc, McSweeney was an unknown quantity on the continent, they said.

Others in Labour, though, were optimistic about the reset and especially the promise of a harder political edge. The government would be alive to the threat posed on the political right by the Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and is relishing the end of the Tory leadership contest on Nov. 2, one official said. Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are in the run-off to replace Rishi Sunak, who led the Conservatives to their worst electoral defeat in July.

Having a new opposition leader will help Starmer, said Theo Bertram, a former aide to Labour premiers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. “Without one, it’s just a referendum on whether Starmer is perfect, but as soon as he or she is elected, then it’s back to a real choice,” he said. “I expect No. 10 look forward to Starmer being compared with Jenrick or Badenoch.”

While the first 100 days have been tougher than many in Labour hoped, it’s also the case that officials never expected a long honeymoon. During the campaign, Reeves and Starmer both warned about their likely fiscal inheritance, and the view at the time was that Sunak triggered the election at least in part over fears of an even more damaging result in a post-budget vote. The hope in Labour is that Reeves’ budget, while difficult, can still help shift the narrative.

“They need to show they have a purpose beyond fixing the public finances, and that fiscal trust is the means to an end, not the goal in itself,” said former Labour adviser James Morris. “That means giving voters optimism that they will get NHS waiting times down and crime down in the next four years — and then delivering on that optimism.”