It has not been a good start to the new year for Keir Starmer: 2024 ended with our beleaguered Prime Minister dipping further in the polls to a net personal favourability rating of minus 38.
A major January “reset” was on the agenda, putting the NHS front and centre again, after the derided “milestones and missions” speech of December.
The high-level delivery of the NHS press plan had been overseen by Starmer’s head of strategic communications, James Lyons, who previously worked as director of communications for the NHS. There is no arguing with the meticulous planning.
Except, how could Lyons have foreseen the explosions Elon Musk began lobbing from his social media platform, X, firing off deeply personal accusations about Starmer’s role leading the Crown Prosecution Service during the Rochdale grooming gang scandal? These included the wildly hyperbolic and inaccurate accusation that Starmer was “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”.
Last week, Musk sent 21 Starlink satellites into the constellation. Firing literal rockets is part of his life at SpaceX. Blowing up a British Prime Minister’s week? Easy.
Messaging on the NHS and education reforms were drowned out as the two main parties, plus Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Musk slogged it out for message supremacy. If Musk’s main priority was to blow Starmer off course, he won.
Whether Reform actually gains from all this, given the Farage/Musk fall-out, remains to be seen. Initially, according to one new YouGov poll, Reform is now only one percentage point behind Labour, pushing the Conservatives into third place. One poll is not a fair representation, but many combined polls show Reform making relentless inroads with voters. Labour likes to paint this as solely a Conservative problem. It is far from that: Farage’s party is the main challenger to Labour in 89 of their seats. Labour MPs in marginal seats are returning to the doorstep in fear of the next election.
But there was one Labour voice markedly absent in the battle last week: Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Her sprawling portfolio does not have quite the urgent status of the NHS or education, meaning she is less present on the airways – unlike her equally ambitious colleagues, Wes Streeting and Bridget Phillipson. And it grates.
She had also been plotting her own New Year relaunch. In a heavily briefed news article this month, sources close to Starmer’s talented deputy described how she saw a new role to put her centre stage: that of Reform vanquisher. Despite her numerous job titles, rumours have persisted that Rayner is being sidelined.
Is there future trouble brewing? In December at a Spectator magazine ceremony, while receiving the coveted politician of the year award, she joked to Streeting about their leadership aspirations. “You know we’re in competition,” she quipped to booming laughter from the delighted dinner crowd. That morning, she had recorded a BBC Politics interview where she described Starmer’s leadership style as like that of a “civil servant”. Oof.
Young male voters are flocking to Reform, and these include in traditional Labour areas. Reform is actively targeting disenchanted voters on either side of the political divide, not just the Conservatives.
Reform MP Richard Tice is parrying for nationalisation of British Steel in Scunthorpe, a seat that recently went Labour to Conservative and back to Labour again, and a target for Reform. They are coming for the Labour voters who will feel disenchanted with a London lawyer as leader.
Rayner, born in Stockport and MP for Ashton in Greater Manchester, speaks to the heartlands. She has Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson’s ability to speak anti-establishment, while being part of it. She is also a traditional union woman.
Her sizeable talents are not lost on Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, either, who is said to have taken steps to placate Rayner. She was recently gifted the keys to a grand grace and favour apartment in Admiralty House, for instance.
As the architect of Labour’s winning election strategy, McSweeney will know that, given her popularity in the party and as Starmer comes under increasing pressure, No 10 cannot afford to alienate her. Especially as Starmer’s former greatest asset, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, is currently suffering a reputational battering. The grassroots site, Labour List, is polling on whether the Chancellor should be removed.
Last week, the grooming gangs battle may have helped draw the bruised Labour Cabinet closer together. But as Rayner will know, having watched colleagues take centre stage again and appreciating that Labour’s relationship with business is in freefall could mean measures in her Employment Rights Bill will be watered down, she needs a major new focus, on top of housing targets.
Will Starmer let his own insecurities and wish for control continue to aggravate Labour’s much-loved fiery star? Or can he recognise Rayner should be unleashed, set free to take on the dogs of Reform, let her have some limelight in an arena he cannot win in?
Otherwise, it might not just be X’s problematic owner lobbing in a few explosions.
