Labour’s first year: Keir Starmer’s government is less than the sum of its parts

Much has changed in the year since Labour won the 2024 general election. There are obvious changes in parliament, in personnel and in policy. But the new government has also shifted its approach from that of its predecessors in notable ways.

These include: stability in the cabinet and an absence of constant leadership speculation (although this week’s welfare reform debacle may have set that hare running); a healthy interest in getting the structures and processes of government right  (although partly this is an inevitable response to a lack of cash to splash on reform); and a decisive response to ethical standards violations by politicians (despite some early unforced errors around in-kind donations).

But amid the heat and light of domestic controversies and geopolitical drama, such important changes are banked with ease by the commentariat. The problem for Keir Starmer is that in the much-remarked absence of a governing philosophy, the efforts of his government risk adding up to less than the sum of their parts. 

The government lacks a positive and principled vision for the future

In many areas, the Labour government has introduced changes that are necessary and valuable and yet these have not been knitted together in a way that is sufficient to shift public perceptions of change. We have seen disparities in progress towards the missions led by different departments: clear ministerial direction within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on housing and planning, and in Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on net zero, have driven more visible progress than elsewhere across Whitehall. And yet the impact of progress in these specific policy areas is not yet being harnessed into an overall vision of a government that is delivering on its manifesto promises. 

While ministers felt it was politically necessary to establish the difficult fiscal inheritance Labour had been gifted by the Conservative party, this narrative alone was insufficient without also supplying a positive and principled vision for the future. In the absence of such a vision, unpalatable decisions will continue to be hard to justify and easier for specific groups of parliamentary rebels to pick off without clarity about the consequences for the Labour government’s overall political project. Entering government in fiscally constrained circumstances does not absolve ministers of the responsibility for justifying the difficult choices that must therefore be made.

The government needs to lead its backbenchers – and civil servants

Labour may have succeeded in winning a large – if shallow – majority in the Commons. But – as is now being widely discussed – ministers risk squandering the advantage this confers without a more sophisticated understanding of and engagement with their phalanx of backbenchers. The problems Starmer and Rachel Reeves encountered over welfare reform will be repeated unless ministers make the reasoned case for the painful reforms and cuts that are doubtless to follow in the remaining years of the parliament . At the same time backbenchers will need to grapple seriously with the trade offs inherent in governing, and pick their battles if they are not to fatally undermine their government’s momentum early in the parliament.

The need for greater leadership and engagement extends beyond parliament. The newly-elected Labour government saw the necessity of behaving decently towards civil servants – attempting to dispel the hostility that had developed between some ministers and officials under previous administrations, although this declined swiftly into the PM’s accusation that some were too comfortable in ‘the tepid bath of decline.’ And in any case, a change of tone cannot be sufficient to empower the civil service to deliver without being accompanied by leadership and direction.

Keir Starmer could hardly have imagined a less conducive week in parliament to mark the first anniversary of Labour’s return to power. The risk now is that his government’s missteps over welfare reform begin to define his administration. The PM has expressed regret about the things he has got wrong in his first 12 months. The question now is whether he can learn the lessons – about policy development, parliamentary management and political communication – that will enable him to lead a government that becomes greater than the sum of its parts.