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Keir Starmer will officially leave Downing Street today, handing the baton to Andy Burnham just two years after Labour won an historic landslide.
So what? Starmer is partly a victim of the dysfunction that has taken hold of British politics since the Brexit vote and is about to produce a sixth prime minister in seven years. But he also played a bad hand poorly. His time in office
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lacked a sense of direction;
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saw Labour’s support plummet; but
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laid some useful foundations for Burnham.
How it started. When Starmer entered Downing Street, he promised a politics that would “tread more lightly” on voters’ lives and to end an “era of noisy performance” after the tumult of successive Conservative governments. “Stability is change,” he said.
How it went. His own administration was blighted by a series of scandals, from donor handouts to Peter Mandelson’s vetting. Added to this were a series of damaging U-turns on welfare cuts, the winter fuel allowance and the two-child benefit cap. These soured relations with Labour MPs, affecting Starmer’s ability to force through legislation despite a whopping majority.
The net result. They also contributed to an impression that Starmer lacked a coherent agenda or a political creed. The fact that Starmer outsourced much of his policymaking to the Treasury and his team inside Number 10 did not help. Nor did the fact that Labour was unprepared for government, as Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former right-hand man, has admitted.
Meanwhile, Starmer’s government failed to hit its own targets. He described growth as his “number one mission”, but the economy expanded by just 1.3% in 2025. Last year 122,012 homes were built, a 2% decrease on 2024, and well short of Labour’s annual aim of 300,000.
Not all bad. Starmer’s government did get some big things done. These include
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raising the minimum wage
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strengthening renters’ rights;
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nationalising rail franchises; and
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trimming NHS waiting lists.
But these successes were not enough for an electorate crying out for change. Nor were they stitched together in a coherent narrative.
To wit, just 26% of voters believe Labour has brought more change than previous Conservative administrations, and Starmer’s approval rating plumbed depths not even reached by Liz Truss.
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Not them. Although Labour’s majority is large, it is also thin, with the party winning 63% of parliamentary seats in 2024 on 34% of the vote. Labour owed this victory to the Tories’ unpopularity, rather than a swell of enthusiasm for what Starmer was offering – and voters proved open to alternatives like Reform and the Greens when he did not deliver it.
That said, Starmer does leave a legacy that Burnham can build on. Growth may be anaemic, unemployment high and cash in short supply, but Labour’s economic credibility has been restored, and the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts the budget to be in surplus by the end of this parliament, discounting spending on investment.
Starmer has also kick-started a reset with the EU and launched a conversation about helping young people get into work. An overhaul of local government is underway that could slot neatly into the devolution agenda outlined by Burnham.
What’s more… Starmer’s biggest successes were arguably on the international stage. His diplomatic work earned him the nickname “never here Keir”.
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Photograph by Peter Nicholls/Getty Images