With donor scandals and axing payments to pensioners some might feel the wheels have already come off for Sir Keir Starmer.
Angela Rayner (Image: Getty)
Britain has been ruled by a Labour Government for nearly five months after Sir Keir Starmer‘s party ended over a decade of Conservative rule.
But despite a large majority in Parliament, the electoral share of the vote for Labour at the General Election was just 34%, only 10% higher than the Tories and not that far ahead of Reform UK in third with 14%.
Almost immediately Labour and Sir Keir faced problems with the August riots sparked by the killings of three children in Southport, Merseyside, and misinformation spread online.
Next came scrutiny of Labour MPs over donations to the party made by Lord Waheed Alli, with the Prime Minister himself admitting that he and his wife had received luxury workwear and glasses worth thousands of pounds from the peer.
October didn’t bring much more good news for ordinary Britons, when stoney-faced Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced she was cutting winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners just as the regulator Ofgem said the price cap for energy was going up.
Ms Reeves also angered farmers leading to thousands to march on Westminster when she decided to impose inheritance tax on farms for the first time, a move which campaigners said could end family-run farms.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party have had five months in power (Image: Getty )
This week Labour faced fresh allegations after Louise Haigh has resigned as Transport Secretary after it emerged she pleaded guilty to a criminal offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013.
Ms Haigh said that she was mugged in London and gave police a list of stolen possessions, including a work phone, when she reported the incident. She said she later found the phone was still in her house.
In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer she said: “I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was a mistake.
“I appreciate that whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government and the policies to which we are both committed.”
Internationally, Labour seem to have found it hard to deal with the big issues. Historic tweets from the now Foreign Secretary David Lammy have resurfaced where he criticised the President-elect Donald Trump
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And after the excellent work of former PM Boris Johnson supporting Ukraine when Russia invaded, Sir Keir Starmer has seemingly had a luke warm response from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over continued British support, however Number 10 insisted the UK’s support for the Ukrainians remains “iron-clad”.
Finally, Elon Musk, billionaire entrepreneur and space explorer, has been vocal in his continued criticism of Labour. Mr Musk has criticised Labour for their new tax on farmers and even shared the petition calling for a new General Election on X, the social media site he owns formerly known as Twitter, claiming “the people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state”.
Downing Street has sought to avoid being drawn into a war of words with Mr Musk. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman added Sir Keir was “focused on the issues that matter most to the British people”.
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