Britons deliver a devastating verdict on Keir Starmer's first year in power... so what DO they think has been his biggest achievement?
More in Common asked voters to offer their one or two-word responses to Labour 's best and worst actions of the party's first 12 months in power to create a word cloud.
And it was pretty brutal, with most people unable to thing of anything good.
Only its work on the NHS made much of a dent in people's gloomy assessment.
On the flipside, they were very clear in what has gone wrong. The Winter Fuel Allowance row was far and away the biggest cock-up in people's minds.
It saw Sir Keir and Chancellor Rachel Reeves try to take away the £300 universal benefit away from all but the poorest recipients, before being forced into a U-turn.
More in Common's director Luke Tryl said it was 'one of the most stark word clouds we've seen - the Winter Fuel Allowance drowns everything else out'.
The other major problem to stand out for voters was immigration, with more than 20,000 people already having crossed the English Channel in small boats this year, a record.
More in Common asked voters to offer their one or two-word responses to Labour's best and worst actions of the party's first 12 months in power to create a word cloud. And it was pretty brutal, with most people unable to thing of anything good.
Sir Keir is facing Labour dissent, economic uncertainty and spiralling conflict abroad as he marks a year in Number 10.
The Prime Minister led his party back into power with more than 400 MPs on July 4 last year – clinching a majority just short of Sir Tony Blair's landslide in 1997.
But with a daunting in-tray of problems including a stuttering economy, creaking public services and global volatility, his political honeymoon period was short-lived.
His personal popularity is now the lowest of any British premier after their first 12 months in office, political scientist and polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said.
'There were pretty clear potential weaknesses before they even started, and most of those weaknesses have basically just been exposed over the course of the last 12 months.'
Sir John said part of the problem lay in what he described as a failure of narrative in setting out the Government's vision for change to the public.
'They're portraying themselves as a repair gang rather than the builders of a new Jerusalem. Pessimism doesn't necessarily go down very well,' he said.
'The thing with Starmer is, he's a brilliant prosecution lawyer… But prosecution lawyers present cases that have been (put together) by someone else. The problem is that as a political leader you've got to prosecute your own case.
'Maybe he needs new personnel? Either he's got to learn to do it himself or get someone in to do it for him.'
That verdict was echoed by some dissenting voices within Labour ranks, where there is lingering discontent among rebels over the Government's Welfare Bill despite Number 10 offering major concessions on the legislation.
The Government saw off the threat of a major Commons defeat over the legislation on Tuesday after shelving plans to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability benefit in England.
'I think he really needs to think about why he wants to be a Labour Prime Minister and what is it he actually cares about,' one long-serving Labour MP said.
They said Tuesday had marked 'the lowest point' in Sir Keir's premiership so far and raised questions about his authority, warning that backbenchers may now feel emboldened to demand further U-turns elsewhere.
Sir John said that the Government's challenges in passing legislation were unsurprising in light of the broad but fragile coalition of support on which Labour built its election victory, securing 412 seats on just 35% of the vote.
That means many MPs defending narrow majorities and raises the prospect of 'a large body of people who are nervous about their political futures,' he said.
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The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Europe is scrambling to form a united front and regain relevance in the Iran crisis
Exposed as divided and marginalised during the Iran crisis, European nations are scrambling to retrieve a place at the Middle East negotiating table, fearing an impulsive Donald Trump has diminishing interest in stabilising Iran or the wider region now he believes he has achieved his key objective of wiping out Tehran's nuclear programme. On Tuesday the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, was the latest senior European figure to phone the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, offering to be a facilitator and urging Tehran not to leave the crisis in a dangerous limbo by keeping UN weapons inspectors out of Iran. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has even broken a three-year silence to speak to Vladimir Putin about the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, including how a deal could be struck between Iran and the US on a restricted civil nuclear programme. Macron has been involved in Iranian diplomacy for a decade and came close to engineering a rapprochement between Trump and the then Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, at the UN general assembly in 2018. But Iran, faced with what it regards as craven European support for Israeli and American airstrikes that killed more than 930 people and injured as many as 5,000, is not placing much faith in the continent's ability to influence the White House. For Europe, this signals a slow slide into irrelevance. The three major European powers known as the E3 – France, Germany and the UK – were once key fixtures in Iran's diplomacy and played a central role in brokering the Iran nuclear deal, which they signed alongside the EU, the US, China, Russia and Iran in 2015. Europe had little input in the US's recent negotiating strategy with Iran, led by Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and was given just over an hour's official warning before the Israeli and US attacks. The one meeting that the E3 foreign minsters held during the crisis with Iranian diplomats in Geneva on 20 June proved a failure and was followed by the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. France claimed it helped Israel repel Iranian drones. Trump crowed afterwards that 'Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one.' From the Iranian perspective, Europe has long been a disappointing negotiating partner, repeatedly failing to show any independence from the US. When Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal in 2018, the E3 condemned the move in a joint statement issued by its then-leaders, Angela Merkel, Theresa May and Macron. But it did nothing effective to pursue an independent strategy to lift European sanctions on Iran as it had promised. The fear that European firms trading with Iran would be put under US sanctions was too great. The view from Tehran, it was felt, was that Europe's timidity left it with no choice but to follow the policy of nuclear brinkmanship, including gradually increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium. At the start of Trump's second term, the E3 plus Kallas tried again to insert themselves into the process by holding three low-key meetings with Iranian negotiators. But Araghchi was always angling to speak to Washington, telling the Guardian of his discussions with the Europeans: 'Perhaps we are talking to the wrong people.' After Trump indicated he was willing to speak to Iran bilaterally and showed some flexibility about Tehran's right to enrich uranium, Iran cast Europe aside. Iran believes Europe played a role either through naivety or complicity in opening the door for the Israeli attack by tabling a motion of censure at the board of the UN nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Such motions have been passed before at the IAEA and usually led to Iran retaliating by increasing its stocks of enriched uranium. But the 12 June motion was different – for the first time in 20 years the board found Iran in breach of its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Europe had to take that step to use its right as a signatory to the 2015 deal to reimpose sanctions on Iran before expiry of the deal on 15 October. Because of the way the deal was negotiated, neither Russia nor China can veto Europe reimposing sanctions. America is no longer party to the deal so this power to reintroduce UN sanctions is Europe's diplomatic re-entry point into the Iranian file. European diplomats insist that the IAEA censure motion was necessary, and that they had no option owing to Iran's mounting stocks of highly enriched uranium that had no possible purpose in a civilian nuclear programme. Europe also still hoped the talks between the US and Iran, mediated by Oman, would bear fruit, and had not foreseen the US giving Israel the green light to attack. Since the Israeli strikes, European unity has frayed further. Britain has largely opted for opacity, but it was obvious from what ministers did not say that the government's legal advice was that the Israeli attack could not be justified as an act of self-defence under the UN charter. France openly asserted that the attack was unlawful. By contrast, Germany endorsed all that Israel has done. At the G7 summit in mid-June, the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said: 'This is the dirty work that Israel is doing, for all of us.' Germany's foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, told parliament that 'Israel has the right to defend itself and protect its people. Let me say clearly that, if Israel and the US have now managed to set back the Iranian nuclear programme, it will make Israel and its neighbourhood more secure.' Asked by the newspaper Die Zeit if he believed Israel's actions were lawful, he said Germany did not have the same quality intelligence sources as the US and Israel, but he had to trust their belief that Iran was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon. 'They told us that, from their perspective, this is necessary – and we must accept that.' Such remarks have left Iranian diplomats spitting about European double standards over the sanctity of international law. By contrast, Enrique Mora, the EU's point person on Iran from 2015 to early 2025, has written a scathing piece in which he says Israel has killed nuclear diplomacy and Iran's nuclear knowledge cannot be destroyed. He wrote: 'If Iran now chooses the militarisation of its nuclear capabilities, if it now decides to move toward a bomb, it will do so following a clear strategic logic: no one bombs the capital of a nuclear-armed country. June 21, 2025, may go down in history not as the day the Iranian nuclear programme was destroyed, but as the day a nuclear Iran was irreversibly born.' There are different strategies Europe can pursue. It can, like Germany, show Iran there is no daylight between the E3 and Israel and assert that Iran can only have a civil nuclear programme that excludes domestic enrichment of uranium. It can press ahead with the reimposition of sanctions and hope that Iran buckles. Alternatively, it can champion a compromise that Tehran can wear. In a recent statement, the European Council on Foreign Relations said 'maximalist demands on Iran – including negotiating over missiles now viewed by Tehran as its main deterrence umbrella – will likely push the country to use every means still available to reach nuclear breakout. A more viable endgame would involve a return of wide-scale inspections by international monitors and an immediate, substantial roll-back of Iranian uranium enrichment. The goal should be Iran pursuing this enrichment through a regional consortium backed by the United States.' That is broadly closer to the French position. Europe will never hold sway like Israel or the US, but it has one last chance to help create something durable, and prevent the Iranian crisis becoming a nuclear proliferation crisis for the whole region.
The Guardian
18 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Rachel Reeves says she cannot rule out autumn tax rises after ‘damaging' week
Rachel Reeves has said it is impossible for her to rule out tax rises in the autumn budget and insisted she never thought about quitting despite a turbulent week for her and the government. In an interview with the Guardian, the chancellor said 'there are costs' to the watering down of the welfare bill and acknowledged it had been a 'damaging' week for Downing Street. The chancellor's tears in the Commons on Wednesday spooked the financial markets and raised questions about her future in the job, but No 10 quickly weighed in behind her, saying she and the prime minister were in lockstep. Reeves said she had never considered resigning her position, despite being the focus of some Labour backbench anger over her handling of the economy, saying: 'I didn't work that hard to then quit.' She said she regretted going into prime minister's questions in tears after a 'tough day in the office' but hoped that people 'could relate' to her distress. 'It was a personal matter but it was in the glare of the camera. And that's unfortunate, but I think people have seen that I'm back in business and back out there,' she said. 'I went to prime minister's questions because I thought that was the right thing to do, because that's where I always am at lunchtime on a Wednesday. You know, in retrospect, I probably wished I hadn't gone in … [on] a tough day in the office. But, you know, it is what it is. But I think most people can relate to that – that they've had tough days.' Her challenging moment in parliament came in the same week that a backbench rebellion forced the government to drop key welfare cuts, which leaves Reeves with a £5bn black hole to fill in the country's finances. 'It's been damaging,' she admitted. 'I'm not going to deny that, but I think where we are now, with a review led by Stephen Timms [a work and pensions minister], who is obviously incredibly respected and has a huge amount of experience, that's the route we're taking now. 'That's the right thing to do. It is important that we listen in government, that we listen to our colleagues and listen to what groups outside are saying as well.' Timms is working with disability groups to reform the personal independent payments (Pip) system, which had been the target of government cuts until the huge backbench rebellion drove the government to drop them. Reeves said the government had learned lessons about bringing MPs and the country along with them in the run-up to what is widely expected to be a difficult budget this autumn ahead. 'As we move into the budget for the autumn, I do want to bring people into those trade-offs,' she said. Asked whether she was prepared to rule out tax rises, she said: 'I'm not going to, because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that. We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement. So we'll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.' While tax rises could be on the table, Reeves signalled that her fiscal rules would remain and that 'we'll continue to keep that grip on the public finances'. But she stressed the need to accompany this with a strong explanation of how the Treasury's choices fit with Labour values. 'I'm not going to apologise for making sure the numbers add up,' she said. 'But we do need to make sure that we're telling a story, and a Labour story. We did that well in the budget and the spending review, we increased taxes on the wealthiest and businesses. In the budget last year, I made it really clear that priorities in that budget were to protect working people, to invest in the NHS and to start rebuilding Britain.' Some within government and the Labour party have been pushing for either a reconsideration of the fiscal rules or rethinking the remit of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which produces two forecasts and rulings a year on whether the rules have been met. Asked whether she would consider one forecast instead of two, Reeves said: 'We are looking at how the OBR works, but I think it is really important to have those independent economic institutions, because if you start undermining those … and getting rid of the checks and balances on a government, I do think that is risky. But the International Monetary Fund have made some recommendations about how to deliver better fiscal policymaking. And obviously I take those seriously.' The IMF has suggested that while the OBR could still produce two forecasts, it could be possible to only have one annual assessment of whether the chancellor is hitting her fiscal rules. However, government sources suggested that any changes could be more along the lines of more regular exchange of information to reduce last-minute changes like those in the spring statement. Reeves also spoke of her drive to reduce child poverty but she would not be drawn on whether she would lift the two-child benefit cap. Keir Starmer has said the government 'will look at it' but experts have warned it could be more difficult given the hole left by the U-turn on the welfare cuts. The chancellor said she wanted to reduce child poverty but was 'not wedded to any specific policy', adding: 'I think people can see how serious I am about making sure that all good kids get a good start in life by what we did in the spending review just a few weeks ago.'
Reuters
19 minutes ago
- Reuters
Sterling heads for weekly loss as fiscal concerns loom
July 4 (Reuters) - Sterling was poised for a weekly loss on Friday, marking a lacklustre end to a week that saw fiscal and political uncertainties rattle investor appetite for UK assets. The pound was flat and last fetched $1.36, while against the euro it inched 0.1% lower and was last at 86.26 pence. Gilt yields were broadly steady in late morning trading. However, on a weekly basis, cable was down 0.4% against the greenback, while it had fallen about 1% against the euro, marking its biggest one-week drop against the currency since U.S. tariffs on world economies took effect in early April. UK stocks, bonds and cable witnessed a selloff earlier in the week, after the government's welfare reforms were not well received by ruling Labour Party members and stirred speculation about the future of finance minister Rachel Reeves. Some analysts even drew parallels between this week's market reaction and the rout during former Prime Minister Liz Truss' premiership in 2022. With the Keir Starmer-led government completing one year in power, uncertainties prevail over the options it has to balance public accounts. "There is speculation that given the difficulties the government has faced in finding savings from welfare budgets, tax rises are likely in the Autumn Budget," said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. "Bets are rising that the Bank of England will cut interest rates more quickly with a reduction in August increasingly on the cards. So, that's kept a bit more downwards pressure on sterling." Traders expect the Bank of England to lower borrowing costs by 25 basis points next in September and are anticipating another interest rate cut by the same amount before the year ends, data compiled by LSEG showed. Further, top ratings agency S&P said the inability of Britain's government to make modest cuts to welfare spending this week underscores that it has very limited budgetary room to manoeuvre. Despite the week's developments, the pound is at a near four-year high against the dollar and is up about 9% so far this year, having benefited from broader dollar weakness and as a U.S.-UK trade deal offered some relief on the tariff front.
