The Tories Gave Keir Starmer an Open Goal, but He Still Missed the Target
Last week’s election performance by the British Labour Party was deeply underwhelming. Despite enjoying every advantage, Keir Starmer has failed to convert a popular backlash against Boris Johnson’s government into support for his own plodding leadership.
Sir Keir Starmer congratulates winning Labour candidates in the Cumberland Council election on May 6, 2022 in Carlisle, England. (Anthony Devlin / Getty Images)
Barnet is one of the London councils that the Labour Party won control of in last week’s English local elections. Paying an early morning visit to the district after the results were in, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, declared this was a “turning point for Labour.” He went on to boast his party was winning from “coast to coast” and that “we had sent a message to the prime minister.”
However, with a net gain for Labour of just 29 council seats in England, compared with 191 for the Liberal Democrats and 61 for the Greens, it was a message that lacked any kind of serious electoral menace. Despite receiving the kind of positive media coverage that his predecessors Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband could only have dreamed of, let alone Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer is still showing little evidence of an ability to connect with voters.
The Johnson Backlash
It was unquestionably a bad day for the ruling Conservatives. As the results trickled in last Friday, what commentators had anticipated to be a measured protest against Boris Johnson’s government became a full-scale Tory rout, with 491 local government councillors lost to the party.
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