It's no surprise that the local elections have elicited widespread media coverage that's massively negative towards Keir Starmer, given that that's what's been happening since 2019 anyway. Very little mention is ever made of the support he has. Those of us who take a broader view and support him have become accustomed to headline after headline predicting his demise. But today's Guardian article by @jessicaelgot kind of takes the cake.
The headline reads: "Most Labour members think Starmer cannot revive party fortunes, poll finds." It's essentially a pitch for Andy Burnham, using his unidentified "allies" as sources. No Starmer allies are mentioned.
It's an old story, one that the media capitalises on relentlessly, always presenting their version as truthful reporting, as Elgot does here. But we can't check the truthfulness. We don't know whether it's the same set of MPs who talk to all the media. We can't research them, find out anything about them at all. Which is convenient for a media that doesn't appear to be invested in truth or balance.
Mostly importantly, Elgot doesn't mention that Compass, who did the poll and are cited throughout the article as the 'authoritative voice', is neither impartial nor non-partisan and nor is its analysis. It's an advocacy-driven, hard-left pressure group.
At the end of the piece, Elgot cites some MPs who have called for Starmer to step down, but doesn’t clarify if they’re Burnham “allies”. Former transport secretary Louise Haigh is one. She 'resigned' when it was revealed that she a had a prior conviction for fraud - which she didn’t disclose to the government's propriety and ethics team when Starmer made her a Cabinet member in 2020.
Which Elgot didn’t mention. Nor did she comment on Haigh’s hypocrisy in moralising at Keir Starmer when her conviction and non-disclosure were revealed, putting him in a difficult position, adding to the very negative narrative about him that the media had latched onto even in the run-up to the 2024 general election. Also not mentioned is that Haigh is co-chair of the Tribune Group, a caucus of Labour MPs that’s allegedly soft-left/centre-left but that advocates for socialist values.
Elgot also cites Sarah Owens as calling for Starmer to step down. Owens has a long record in politics, like Haigh. In 2019 she won her constituency with 23,496 votes, a majority of 9,247. In 2024 she won again, but with far fewer votes – 14,667 and a majority of 7,510. Still a good win, but also a significant drop. So for her to be preaching at Keir Starmer is also questionable.
Owens is co-Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East and resigned from the Cabinet in 2023 in support of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. We probably agree on a great deal over this issue. But so does Keir Starmer. At the UN Security Council in July 2024 the government called for an immediate ceasefire. The transcript of that speech is worth reading.
I’d like to see the whole world stop supporting Netanyahu, who is a war criminal and belongs in jail for the rest of his life, but the point here is that getting rid of Keir Starmer doesn’t guarantee it. In fact a new Labour leader will destabilise the party. Kemi Badenoch has already said that if it happens, there must be another election. We could get a Reform government, which would back Netanyahu’s genocidal mania to the hilt and destroy UK democracy, just as Trump has tried to do in the US, and to an alarming extent, succeeded.
Also, the rosy idea that a new Labour leader – like Burnham, for example – would escape savaging by the media is absurd. They’d get the same treatment, find their popularity plummeting, and have people plotting against them as is happening with Keir Starmer. Aided and abetted by media from all sides. Even if there wasn’t a general election straight away, Labour would be more divided and in a worse position by the time it did happen.
None of this is mentioned by Elgot either. Am I expecting too much from her? No, I’m not. In fact, I expect more. For balance, she should have cited all the identifiable sources who say that now is not the time to replace Keir Starmer. It’s called journalism.
