Keir Starmer has made the most inept start of any prime minister in a century, a leading historian has warned.
Sir Anthony Seldon even suggested that Liz Truss, who lasted just six weeks in office before she was ousted by her own MPs, has done a better job than the Labour leader.
“Not in 100 years has anyone made such an inept start coming into the (role) with so little idea about what he is doing (and) why he is doing it,” he told Sky News.
He said optimism and a focus on growth could tackle Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
“Show people that you are prime minister, show people you’ve got a story, show people things getting better across the whole country with growth and then that will deal with Reform.”
He said part of the problem was that Sir Keir entered No 10 without talking to previous PMs, or working out “who he needs to have around him or what his story or his purpose is”.
Asked about Ms Truss, who was famously outlasted by a lettuce, he said “at least Liz Truss had a clear plan”.
The judgement comes at a difficult time for the PM, ahead of his first anniversary in the job this week.
On Sunday, he admitted he had failed to get to grips with the growing rebellion over welfare reforms earlier because he was focused on foreign affairs, including the recent G7 and Nato summits and the escalating tensions in the Middle East.
He said that his “full attention really bore down” on the benefits changes last week, in the middle of a full-scale rebellion of more than 100 of his backbenchers, enough to defeat the government’s plans.
Ministers had hoped the reforms would save up to £5bn a year, but the climbdown means the chancellor Rachel Reeves faces having to find billions through possible tax rises this autumn.
Despite the setbacks, the PM should win a key vote on welfare reform in the Commons on Tuesday, after a leading rebel indicated she would back the proposals.
Louise Haigh said she needed to see the full detail of the plans on “exactly how the new system will work.”
“But subject to that detail, I will be supporting the government on Tuesday in recognition that they have made significant progress and that they have protected the incomes of nearly 400,000 disabled people across the country,” she told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.
The health secretary Wes Streeting suggested he was confident the government would win the vote, saying ministers were in a “much better position”, but did not rule out further concessions, adding “we’ve got to listen”.
The leader of the Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham has called for the Government to start from scratch and said the latest plans were “divisive and sinister”, however.
On Sir Keir’s first year in office, the polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice agreed with Sir Anthony, saying it had been the “worst start for any newly elected prime minister, Labour or Conservative.”
He said Labour’s landslide victory last summer had masked vulnerabilities in the party’s support and its policies.
“Labour only won 35% of the vote — the lowest share ever for a majority government. Keir Starmer was never especially popular, and the public still don’t know what he stands for” he told Times Radio.
“The only vision he’s really presented is: ‘We’ll fix the problems the Conservatives left us.’ But it’s not clear how he wants to change the country.”
