Keir Starmer must do more if wants to get a foothold in Downing Street

LAST Wednesday I heard a spokesman for the Labour Party proclaim that there had been a seismic shift in the opinion polls in our favour.

My immediate reaction was to think, “I wish.”

The relative improvement in Labour’s fortunes is, quite frankly, the very ­minimum we should have expected given what’s been happening to the Prime Minister and his Government.

In a poll for today’s Sun on Sunday, Labour leader Keir Starmer is still ­faltering.

He will know that his ratings need to improve if he wants to get a foothold in Downing Street.

In a head-to-head against Boris Johnson, Keir polled 36 per cent against the PM’s 35 points.

When the public do come to cast their vote in a general election, they often do so with the shape of the economy — and how flush with cash they are — in mind.

Remember the phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

A line-up of Boris, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, against Keir and his finance chief Rachel Reeves sees them with a narrow one-point lead.

This is where Labour need to make it count to win an election.

For more than 18 months following the election in December 2019, Boris Johnson appeared to be unassailable.

Whatever he did or said, whatever blunders were made and gaffes committed, the shine never seemed to fade from this “naughty boy”, as older members of the electorate appeared to view him.

Tens of thousands died in care homes, billions were wasted on the failed Test and Trace system, friends of friends were given contracts for PPE.

The relevance of all of this is that while the disastrous legacy of ­Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership was gradually being replaced by trust, and the inkling of a hearing for Labour’s front bench, there was only a narrowing of the opinion polls — so that the two major parties were neck and neck.

Only after the staggering revelations became — to use a favourite phrase of Boris — a tidal wave of accusation about parties in Downing Street, did the polls shift gradually in Labour’s favour.

But from my point of view, sadly by nowhere near what would be needed to overturn a Conservative majority and give Labour the chance to lead an alternative government.

While optimists among Labour supporters pointed to a 38-32, 41-33 opinion poll lead, I was recalling that, before the 1997 Labour landslide, opinion poll ­ratings of 15 per cent and even 20 per cent were registered.

The Prime Minister is being investigated by the police, and former Conservative ministers have openly called for him to resign.

All of this at a time when National Insurance is due to rise from April, inflation is causing real pain for the lowest paid and money is to be borrowed to try to reduce the impact of the staggering £693 increase in the cap on energy prices.

All this with nothing short of a feeble response from the Government.

And yet, still the Conservatives hold on to a third of the electorate.

What, from my own experience of more than 50 years in public life, does Labour have to do?

REAL PAIN

It’s not an easy question.

The recently reshuffled Shadow Cabinet, who would, if Labour were elected, form a government, is proving to be sharper, hungrier for success and somewhat more media savvy.

Take Labour’s Lisa Nandy, responding to Michael Gove’s announcement on what the Government calls “levelling up”.

Fiery, energised, and with the kind of hard-hitting words any Opposition desperately needs if they are to oust the incumbents.

Yet even Lisa, with all the notice that has been given over the announcement of the Levelling Up White Paper, was unable to produce detailed plans for Labour’s alternative.

Five principles with which no one could disagree, but a failure to appreciate that a true transformation of the lives of millions will only come about through a massive change in education and skills.

With unprecedented vacancies after nearly a million European workers have gone home, promising a jobs revolution is only relevant if there is genuine progression from a low-paid starting point to real opportunity to climb the ladder and have aspiration rewarded.

It is impossible for Keir Starmer to mimic the swashbuckling, sometimes charismatic, sometimes buffoonery actions of Boris Johnson.

Post-war Labour Prime Minister Clem Attlee couldn’t match the stature and turn of phrase of Winston Churchill in 1945.

But what Labour had, at that time, was a programme of simple transformation and response to the great challenges that existed then.

Today’s equivalent is the challenge of the future world of work.

The revolution in artificial intelligence, robotics and digital innovation.

But also, a truly long-term answer to the enormous challenge of climate change, and how we sustain each other in ageing — supporting carers, whether family or neighbours, and ensuring individual dignity and tailoring support to what people need rather than asking people to put up with what’s on offer.

This is significant for ­Labour.

EXPOSE HYPOCRISY

Older people vote in vastly greater numbers than the under-40s.

An appeal to the electorate needs to consider the values and principles that would provide the platform for success.

It also needs to understand what persuades people to vote — to regain the millions of over-65s who didn’t vote Labour in 2019, while winning the confidence and trust of younger people who need to be inspired into thinking there will be a better future for them and their families.

Keir Starmer has broken the legacy of the complete disconnect between Labour from 2015 to the 2019 General Election.

However, trust, empathy, a feeling that “they are on our side”, and visionary and iconic policies that capture the imagination, will all be needed as ­Partygate fades into history.

Remembering that if Boris Johnson is replaced, there will immediately be a honeymoon period for a new Conservative leader.

It happened when John Major took over after Margaret Thatcher was ousted. It happened when Boris Johnson took over from Theresa May.

Each managing the enormous trick of pretending that their predecessor was somehow of a different party, and this was a “fresh start”.

Even today, as we approach 12 years of a Conservative-led government, there are still parts of the electorate who seem to believe they have just taken over.

Boris Johnson has managed to wipe out nine and a half years.

For Keir Starmer, and for Labour — and that includes me — the challenge is enormous.

Fear of change, willingness to give the benefit of the doubt, the innate conservatism of at least the English electorate, all must be overcome for a Labour victory to be in sight.

What has happened over recent months has given Labour the green light: The ability to expose the entitlement, hypocrisy and incompetence of the present Government.

But for Labour to win, the inherently sceptical voter needs much more.

The challenge for Labour is to identify, then deliver, on what that might be

There is still time to do this but given the uncertain ­political environment in which we work, time might just be running out.

• Lord Blunkett was Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2015 and held the Cabinet posts of Education Secretary, Home Secretary and Work and Pensions Secretary between 1997 and 2005.