By Tanya Joseph, Senior Counsel

It is hard being Prime Minister. All the hopes and dreams you had in opposition and during the campaign are dashed immediately by the reality of politics and economics. Inevitably the people who voted for you, who expected immediate change, are disappointed. Whilst it is not surprising that Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour government are less popular than they were at the time of the election. It is the degree of that unpopularity that is most surprising.

This morning, there are a lot of people, Starmer included, asking themselves how within a year of winning a landslide election did the Labour government have to abandon a major plank of its welfare reform to avoid a humiliating parliamentary defeat at the hands of its own backbenchers.

To be fair to Starmer he was dealt a bad hand at the start: there is much less money to invest in his growth agenda than Labour had expected and having promised not to increase taxes, wriggle room is limited. He has also had to deal with the fallout of the new Trump presidency: trade wars and actual wars alongside Trump’s very clear demand that NATO allies should increase their defence spending if they expect military backing from the USA. Mindful that the first duty of the Prime Minister is to protect the security of the country, Starmer increased defence spending, further tightening the room for fiscal manoeuvre.

Given their limited options, it was inevitable that Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves would have to look at welfare spending to find some cash. You won’t find many, if any, MPs who don’t agree that the system is in need of serious reform but there is no consensus either on what or how to do it. Labour, with its 165 majority, certainly has the parliamentary power, and, with the history of the party so entwined with the welfare state, it has the legitimacy to grasp the nettle. But it faltered in large part because the decision was not taken as part of a wider strategy to deliver a clear vision.

It is a fundamental problem because without one you are directionless, constantly distracted by the new, shiny, and urgent; you will be busy but going nowhere. You also won’t be able to tell the story of what you are doing as a government and why.

To be clear, growth is not a vision, neither is stabilising the economy, they are priorities. All the talk of Starmer’s five missions has quietened. Now it feels like they are looking at issues one at a time with no golden thread tying them together. It begs the question on what basis decisions are being taken. Is it political conviction or Treasury exigences?

The result is disenchantment and grumpiness. Voters are turning away from Starmer and Labour in droves, Labour’s own backbench MPs are in rebel mode and the markets are jittery.

Thus, we have the government reversing its position on three high profile issues in the space of two weeks. Three issues where policy decisions hadn’t been properly thought through, the impact assessed, and communications plans made. Three own goals.

If there was an overall strategic vision, these issues could have been sense-checked against it. The Government might have come to the same conclusion on any or all of them, but it would have been more certain confident about those conclusions, better able to defend them and would have been able to weave them into its broader narrative.

The first hint that were was a problem was the winter fuel payment decision. In policy terms it wasn’t, in my view, a bad decision. As a universal benefit, the payment is a very expensive way of supporting the poorest pensioners. The large majority of pensioners might enjoy the benefit, but they don’t really need it. Does Elton John need it? Rod Stewart? Helen Mirren? There are already other, better targeted ways to support poor pensioners, but uptake is low mainly because of lack of awareness or the complexity of applying. So, there is a story to be told about how the Government is going to focus resources on the most vulnerable, helping them to access the support that is already there for them while freeing up much needed cash for public investment.

It wouldn’t have been the place I would start if I was going to cut the welfare bill and I certainly wouldn’t have just announced it within days of taking office out of the blue, on its own.  But this is what Starmer and Reeves did. No effort was made to explain why, what the government was doing to do to support poorer pensioners. Nothing. Voters were unhappy, the opposition parties made hay with it and it became a thorn in the government’s side.

Then there were the Labour backbenchers who had to spend weeks and months justifying the decision to their constituents. It was hard. As one said to me “making poor people poorer is not what we do”. For the most part they bit their lips publicly. But then came the u-turn. While happy about the outcome they were angry with the PM and his team for making them defend the policy and now they felt like fools. With the changes to personal independence plans (PIPs) on the horizon, they were determined not to be placed in the same position again and forced massive concessions from Starmer.

The price of those concessions will be high. Reeves will have to find £10 billion to fund the government’s investment plans and it feels like the only way she will be raise that money is through taxes. The political price is equally high. Starmer and his front bench have been made to look weak. How they recover from this will determine the outcome of the next election.

All is not lost, yet. But the Prime Minister needs to regroup rapidly. He needs to be clear on his “project” – where he wants to take us as a country and why and then build a strong narrative to articulate it. He might need some help but there are lots of us who can and will help. Of course there will events, both domestic and foreign, which will require attention but clarity on the project will help him get back on track. Without this, he may be toast.