How Does Starmer Stack Up?
The British Labour Party has a new leader. How does his debut compare to his predecessors?
The House of Commons was eerily quiet. A small handful of Ministers filled the usually overcrowded chamber, disparately and deliberately spread across the government and opposition benches. Even the Prime Minister was absent, recovering in quarantine. This is democracy in COVID-Britain and the backdrop to Sir Kier Starmer’s debut as Leader of the Labour Party.
After soundly winning the Labour leadership election, Starmer promised a more pragmatic and unified approach than his predecessor, promising to hold the government to account, but to be sensible enough to support the government when necessary. His first Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) was a chance to see this philosophy on display. His supporters described him as clinical and concise, his detractors as restrained and uninspired. To be fair to Starmer, the whole affair was bound to be less lively as usual, with both government and opposition benches abandoned as parliament observes social distancing measures. We often complain that the childish jeering and whooping of parliamentarians is a discredit to British politics and yet the silent chamber undeniably lacks a certain character. Strange circumstances aside, Starmer’s debut is a perfect opportunity to look to the past and take stock. So let’s examine how previous leaders have performed in their debuts at PMQs and see how Starmer stacks up.
John Smith- 25th October 1992
“If the Prime Minister really believes he has a strong case, what has he to lose from an independent inquiry? What is he afraid of?!”
Coal, Coal, Coal
Not the first Labour leader to spring to mind, perhaps due to his short tenure, but John Smith is an opposition leader worth knowing. Among his claims to fame, he was the first Leader of the Opposition to have a televised debut, which makes him the perfect person to kick off our list.
Like Starmer, Smith was a lawyer before he entered office and he was a committed reformer, lessening the power of the trade unions by introducing individual votes for members.
Smith debuted against John Major on 25th October 1992 overseen by the Common’s most legendary Speaker, Betty Boothroyd (now Baroness Betty Boothroyd for fans of alliteration), who had taken up the position earlier that year. It’s a pretty banal affair with no obvious winner. Smith uses all of his allotted questions to badger Major on the single issue of the governments coal pit closure programme, more specifically the lack of transparency and independent oversight. The closure of the coal pits by Major was a huge issue, with some trade unionists, most famously Arthur Skargill, calling for militant action. Major deflects by committing to publish and debate the results of the government’s consultation on the issue. Then he rather feebly tries to return fire: The Labour government, he claims made similar closures when they were in power. Labour had not been in power for thirteen years… sound familiar?
We will never know how his performance at the dispatch box would have translated into voters. Smith died suddenly on 11th May 1994. A heart attack following a Labour Party fundraiser. At the time of his death however, Labour had a massive 20% lead in the polls, so it is perhaps undeniable that Smith helped pave the way for the eventual election of Tony Blair in 1997.
Tony Blair — 23rd October 1994
“A divided government is a weak government and a weak government is no good for Britain!”
Northern Ireland and the European Union
Building on Smith’s work and capitalising on a collapse in Tory popularity, Tony Blair would eventually become one of Britain’s longest serving Prime Ministers with a cool ten years in office. But prior to his landslide victory in 1997, Blair started on the opposition benches.
As with Smith, Blair debuted against Major. Blair’s deputy, John Prescott yells ‘Petrified!’ at the PM, but it is Blair that seems a little nervous. Interestingly, Blair’s questions foreshadow what are seen as two of his biggest legacies. He begins by offering his support to the government in their efforts for securing peace in Northern Ireland. During his premiership, Blair was a key figure in the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to The Troubles in Northern Ireland. He then goes on the attack, striking out at the Government’s disarray over European policy, particularly on the issue of the single currency (the Euro). Blair makes a point of the apparent differences in opinion of the PM, the Chancellor and other members of the Cabinet. Major lashes back, claiming that Blair would follow Europe ‘slavishly’ regardless of the consequence. This would not turn out to be the case. Although Blair’s government was theoretically in favour of adopting the Euro, the currency failed to meet both his and his treasurer Gordon Brown’s economic standards, so a promised referendum on the issue was never held.
As mentioned, Blair would sweep the floor with the Conservative Party in the 1997 general election and beat them twice more at the ballot box before his resignation a decade later in 2007. The combination of the financial crash and the war in Iraq proved too much for his successor, Gordon Brown, to overcome and the Labour Party was forced back to the opposition benches, where it has remained ever since.
Ed Miliband — 13th October 2010
“The truth is Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister cannot defend this policy and, let’s be honest, it has been a shambles from day one.”
Child Benefit and the Squeezed Middle
Lucy Cosslett, a writer for The Guardian, once claimed Ed Miliband represented the ‘meme-ification of politics’ and it’s easy to see why. Tripping off a debate stage, missing a kiss from his wife and, most famously, failing to eat a bacon sandwich. The British press, The Telegraph in particular, lavished in every faux pas, real or imagined. The media onslaught was so pervasive it sparked backlash in the form of #Milifandom whereby teenage girls would publicly (and seemingly genuinely) declare their admiration for Miliband — akin to a political version of Beatles Mania. Coming to power after beating his own brother to the job, Miliband was destined to face an uphill battle in the arena of public opinion. Regardlessly, he is certainly a leader worthy of examination.
Miliband debuted against Prime Minister David Cameron. The pair would become somewhat of a double act that was perhaps a little to theatrical for some. This is certainly foreshadowed here. It is a spirited performance with Miliband tackling the government of its child welfare reforms, “The Children’s Minister, I can’t see him,” Miliband quips, “He went on the run.” To his credit, he very clearly outlines the cost of the government’s policy: “Take a family on thirty-three thousand [pounds a year] after tax, if they’ve got three kids they’ll be losing two and a half thousand pounds as a result of these changes.” Cameron fires back with his trademark indignation, but his response a little inconsistent suggesting that, behind the veneer, he may actually have been ruffled. Ultimately, he settles on painting Miliband as a puppet, ‘It’s not Red; it’s Brown!’, an allusion to Michael Heseltine’s famous jibe.
It’s hard not to feel like Miliband got a bad rap, constantly berated about his awkward demeanour, he lost out in one of the most unrepresentative election results of all time (the Conservatives won a majority with just thirty-six percent of the popular vote). Labour actually maintained it’s share of the vote under Miliband but lost nearly thirty seats in parliament. As a result he resigned the next day. He now hosts a successful podcast (Reasons to be Cheerful — dare I say, it’s well worth checking out) and, under Starmer’s leadership, has made a return to the front benches as the Shadow Secretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. So maybe we have not seen the last of Red Ed.
Jeremy Corbyn — 16th September 2015
“Above all, they wanted their voice heard in parliament.”
Marie, Steven, Paul, Claire, Gail and Angela
It’s hard to believe it has been only been 5 years since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party. For many, he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, but Corbyn has a long track record as a backbencher. Since his election in 1982, Corbyn was a true progressive and a vocal supporter of minority groups. He was arrested in 1984 during an anti-apartheid demonstration and nearly went to prison for refusing to pay the Tory’s controversial poll tax. This rebellious streak, however laudable in a backbench MP, would cause him nothing but grief as leader of the party. After all, how can one command loyalty to a man who rebelled against the party whip a staggering four hundred and twenty eight times while in government?
Among the media furore surrounding Labour’s landslide defeat in December’s election, it is easy to forget the sense of optimism, particularly among young people, that Corbyn’s elevation to opposition leader brought with it. Corbyn debuts against David Cameron. He has been cleaned up by his advisers, appearing in a suit as opposed to his usual hand knitted sweater. During questions, Corbyn adopts an unorthodox approach that, although successful this time around, would later become a stick to beat him with. Rather than use his own words, he describes his questions as coming directly from the general public, “I sent out an email to thousands of people and asked then what questions they would like to put to the Prime Minister. I received forty thousand replies.” A kitsch rhetorical device, but somewhat of a masterstroke. The house falls silent and Cameron at times appears genuinely uncomfortable, his usual witty retorts forcibly dialled back. After all, it’s easy to jeer at a political opponent, but dismissing a member of the public is in very bad taste. Using this device, Corbyn covers the issues of housing, tax credits and mental health. All in all, it is a mostly civilised affair. At the very least Corbyn delivered on his promise to do things differently.
Corbyn outlasted two Prime Ministers, lead two general election campaigns and survived a leadership contest from within his own party, all in spite of what seemed like an endless media storm, cementing himself as one of the most resilient politicians of an era. Ultimately, he never managed to galvanise the general public in the way he did his core supporters. After a slow decline in popularity, he was soundly thrashed by Boris Johnson in December’s general election. Regardless of your opinion on Corbyn (I know you have one!), he had an undeniable influence on the party, pushing left wing policies into the public imagination, even if he didn’t necessarily win the argument. In particular, Corbyn will be remembered for possessing the rare ability to rally the support of young voters, a tactic Starmer should seek to emulate if he is to seek electoral success.
Kier Starmer— 22nd April 2020
“We all want and need the government to succeed in defeating the coronavirus, but we also have to have the courage to challenge where we think the government has gotten it wrong.”
Corona Crisis
So here we are, back to where we started. Starmer took leadership of the party on the 4th April after comfortably seeing off his opponents, Rebecca Long-Baily and Lisa Nandy, in the first round of voting. True to his word however, he incorporated both of his rivals into senior positions of his Shadow Cabinet, an important gesture for a man who ran his campaign on a policy of unity. Starmer’s debut also saw him repeat rhetoric that he would be critical of the government, but also constructive where necessary.
The conditions of Starmer’s debut are radically different than the other opposition leaders on this list. Firstly, social distancing rules made this the first ever PMQs to be held ‘virtually,’ with the majority of ministers attending by teleconference. Secondly, Starmer did not debut against the Prime Minister as Johnson was in quarantine after being hospitalised by the coronavirus. Instead, Starmer faces off against the First Secretary Dominic Raab. The comparison of Starmer to a lawyer is inevitable, but accurate. His questions at times seem more like testimony, consisting almost entirely of explanations, numbers and, for the lack of a better word, exhibits (Note: it actually made choosing a quote to head this section remarkably difficult!). Testimony from British manufacturers; the deficit between Britain's testing capacity and output; he even draws from Corbyn’s playbook and reads a letter from a constituent. That said, there is very little drama, just an attempt to wear down the First Minister with facts and figures. Raab at times looked like a lectured school boy as Starmer rewards him for good behaviour and then admonishes him for his mistakes. As with Corbyn, Starmer’s style is certainly unique. It will be interesting to see if this substance-over-style approach is maintained when the sobering atmosphere of lock-down is replaced with the Common’s raucous normality.
This week saw Boris Johnson’s return to parliament. Starmer certainly seemed less forgiving of the Prime Minister than he was of the First Minister. Britain currently has the second highest coronavirus death toll in the world. Without doubt, once this crisis is over the government will need to be held accountable. That is the first duty of the Leader of the Opposition. But political success will require skills far beyond the debating chamber, so we will have to wait and see how effective a leader Starmer will prove to be.
