Keir Starmer Had a Bad Week

A little more than a year ago Keir Starmer became the UK Prime Minister after a sweeping election victory for his Labour Party. But since then he's really struggled. This week was being billed as a reset or relaunch for his administration, which basically boiled down to the UK equivalent of a cabinet reshuffle designed to make it look like he was doing something to address the economy.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a raft of changes to his Downing Street team in a bid to reset his government and give him more influence over economic policy, after a stuttering first year in power saw his leadership called into question and Labour tank in the polls...

The premier further strengthened the economic expertise in his office by naming Minouche Shafik, a former deputy governor at the Bank of England and International Monetary Fund director, as his new chief economic adviser...

...the moves represent a recognition that Number 10 needed to play a greater role on the economy ahead of a budget due in the fall that is seen as make-or-break for the administration, a government official said...

“I want to go further and faster, and that’s amongst the reasons I have done some changes here at Number 10 today, to make Number 10 more powerful, to drive through the changes that we need,” Starmer said later in a BBC Radio interview. “We spent the first year sort of fixing the foundations if you like, doing the hard yards. But we now enter into phase two of the government, which is where we focus on delivery, delivery, delivery, and start to show what a difference a Labour government really makes.”

If the name of his new economic adviser sounds familiar that's because it's the same Minouche Shafik who resigned her position as President of Columbia University last year after months of disruption on the campus by pro-Hamas activists.

In any case, you can hear the gist of what he's doing. Things have been tough but now we're starting a new phase of my government and it's all going to be a whole lot better from hear on out. That was the reset message he wanted out of this week.

But pity poor Keir. By Friday morning he was dealing with an absolute PR disaster. His Deputy PM/Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, resigned after an investigation concluded she hadn't paid her property taxes on a beach house.

Somehow, it keeps getting worse for Keir Starmer.

The British Prime Minister was already in the mire: His economy is barely growing, ascendant critics assail him from the left and right, and his popularity has tanked to historic levels just a year after a landslide victory.

And on Friday Starmer suffered perhaps his most significant setback yet when his influential deputy resigned after admitting she underpaid 40,000 pounds (around $54,000) in property taxes...

After months of press speculation, Rayner admitted this week that she failed to pay enough property taxes — known as “stamp duty.” She said she believed she had followed the rules, and was tripped up by her “complex living arrangements,” including her 2023 divorce and son with special educational needs...

"I take full responsibility for this error," she said in a letter to Starmer, accepting she "did not meet the highest standards in relation to my recent property purchase."

Apparently, Rayner was something of a rock star in the party because of her background, so this loss is another blow to the party as well as to Starmer.

The departure of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, one of the governing Labour Party’s most popular figures, as Parliament resumed is a huge political blow to Mr. Starmer, whose government was already trailing Reform UK in most opinion polls.

She was among his most loyal and trusted lieutenants. Along with serving as Deputy Prime Minister, she was Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Her working-class background as a teen mom who rose through the ranks of the union movement also made her a popular figure among Labour faithful and she was elected Deputy Leader in 2020 when Mr. Starmer was elected leader.

Her resignation “will be a body blow for the Starmer government,” said Victoria Honeyman, a professor of British politics at the University of Leeds.

The result of all of this is that Starmer started the week hoping for an orderly reset and ended it needing another reset which was definitely not part of his plan.

Keir Starmer was forced into a major overhaul of his embattled government Friday after the resignation of a scandal-hit ally.

Starmer on Friday afternoon embarked on the first significant reshuffle of his bumpy time in office, in a move prompted by the dramatic exit of Angela Rayner from his top team following an ethics probe into her financial affairs...

One Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the party needed a deputy leadership election “like a hole in the head.”

Today's disaster couldn't have come at a better time for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

The timing of the exit could hardly have been more awkward for Starmer. It came just an hour before Farage, the leader of Reform UK, bounded on to the stage at his party’s conference in Birmingham, with his outfit leading in national polls.

Leaping on the row Friday, Farage said it was “inevitable” that Rayner had had to go given her role as housing secretary. But he said her exit as deputy Labour leader was potentially more significant politically...

“For the last few years, the story has been splits within the Conservative Party. Mark my words. Within weeks, it’ll be splits within the Labour Party.”

In sum, it has been a disastrous week for Keir Starmer. He was hoping for a PR-friendly reset and got another embarrassing crisis which is likely to make his job even harder moving forward.

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