Keir Starmer wants to be seen as a working-class PM. Deeds, not warm words, will determine that | Aaron Sharp

keir-starmer-wants-to-be-seen-as-a-working-class-pm.-deeds,-not-warm-words,-will-determine-that-|-aaron-sharp
Keir Starmer wants to be seen as a working-class PM. Deeds, not warm words, will determine that | Aaron Sharp

Keir Starmer wants to establish himself as a working-class politician, but many voters are sceptical. In a recent YouGov poll, 48% of working-class voters think Starmer is doing a bad job. Labour’s lead is also narrower with working-class voters than among the wider electorate. It is a sentiment that is likely to be echoed in many other former industrial regions. Even in a city such as Liverpool, which has long been a crucible of anti-Tory sentiment, Labour under Starmer feels like a “hold your nose” vote.

The effect of Boris Johnson’s abuse of support in 2019 and Liz Truss’ economic self-harm has burned a bridge of trust between those at the sharp end of an unequal society and Westminster. The lack of common ground between voters in faraway towns and Britain’s political class is where Starmer needs to plant his red flag. Politics in a trust vacuum is dangerous for a party of traditions, and in this climate, voters will go with whoever is offering the best short-term deal.

For Starmer, the way back to that trust will take more than cosy words of class solidarity. Starmer’s growing list of U-turns on pledges pointed at low-income families is beginning to look less like blows landed in an assault on inequality than punches pulled. The promise of universal free childcare for children over nine months has been revised to a means-tested system, and despite Labour describing the current two-child benefits cap as “one of the single most heinous elements of the system”, the party will retain it if it comes to power.

The cumulative effect of these watered-down pledges is a creeping suspicion among voters that Starmer’s Labour isn’t quite the class-allied engine of change he promised on the banks of the Mersey in October. If Starmer can resist an election pitch centred on empty, class-based homilies, and instead deliver a policy agenda that can inspire hope as much as it dampens suspicion, electoral victory will be the prize. Both sides need that to happen

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