His Majesty’s government won an overwhelming mandate just a few short months ago, they have an enormous majority, they were always going to have to risk short-term controversies to make the essential changes this country needs, and they’re cleaning up the mess left behind by the previous Tory administration.
That’s the Labour spin, anyway. Unlike the last Labour landslide government led by Tony Blair, the public just aren’t buying what they’re being told.
Opinion polls since the election have already proved this. Never in the history of landslide government wins has a party become so unpopular so quickly.
If another election were held today, just four months on from storming to power with a 172-seat majority, Labour would lose 144 seats and have barely enough bums on seats to form a working majority coalition with the LibDems.
This weekend’s petition, which now has 2.2 million signatures, is yet another demonstration of public opposition to the Government.
People should not get excited about it. The vast majority of its supporters will not have voted Labour, indeed as I revealed yesterday the petition was launched by someone who, even despite 14 years of chaos, still voted Tory in July.
However it is nonetheless a remarkable state of affairs that so soon after sweeping to victory, Keir Starmer is now having to bat away calls for another poll.
By contrast, a great many lefties made a lot of noise in January about a 38Degrees petition calling for a general election to boot out Rishi Sunak.
After 14 years of incompetence, poor economic performance, infighting, leaks, u-turns, and five Prime Ministers, this petition got just over 200,000 signatures.
In other words after nearly a decade and a half of governing, voters were ten times less likely to be demanding an end to the Tory government as they are now with Labour.
I must confess there is a part of me that wants to warn the right off from revelling in Labour’s misfortune.
One Labour claim that is unarguable is that the country is in a proper mess, and almost all the solutions required to fix our once great nation will almost certainly provoke enormous backlash.
Imagine if we’d kicked out Mrs Thatcher in 1982 when unemployment topped three million.
One day the right will be back in power, and will almost certainly face a similar amount of public anger as it tries to get the country back on track.
Unfortunately for the country, I have yet to see any evidence that Sir Keir’s policies will one day result in the clouds clearing.
Growth is forecast to remain stagnant, businesses are already warning about a rise in unemployment, the government is still riddled with sleaze, and Labour doesn’t just lack a policy to deal with our immigration crisis but it actively does not care about solving the problem.
Sir Keir came to power with an enormous cockiness, despite garnering just 1/3 of the vote in July on the lowest election turnout since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Despite this, he has carried on as if he were Tony Blair reincarnate. That was his fundamental mistake – lacking the true endorsement of voters in the first place.
He’ll muddle on for another four years, I have no doubt about that, but when the election comes voters will have their say – and I doubt they will be kind.
