Starmer is a ‘dead man walking’ – and he’s not even on the ballot

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After immersing yourself in mainstream British media over recent days, you would be sure that the biggest question facing the nation was whether Andy, Angela or Wes had the numbers to be the next prime minister. But you would emerge from your reading without the slightest idea of how any of them would lift the country out of its political peat bog.

There is an overwhelming sense of inevitability about a leadership spill that tears down Keir Starmer as prime minister after less than two years in the post, and despite his success in leading Labour to power at the 2024 election after 14 years in opposition. When political insiders meet for drinks in Soho, the verdict is that he is a dead man walking.

A looming deadline is sending Labour backbenchers into a panic. Britain votes on Thursday to choose hundreds of local councils as well as parliaments in Scotland and Wales. Starmer is not on the ballot papers, but the outcome is being framed as a referendum on Labour. And all the polls say Labour will be trounced.

There is no verdict, however, on what a new leader should do to fix all the problems being sheeted home to the old one. There is, instead, the desperate hope that a new face can fix everything.

Australians will recognise this torment from countless leadership spills over the past two decades. And it really is a torment – for the voting public. Every phase follows the same formula, whether it is in Canberra or Westminster. There are the public calls for unity and the private mutterings about the need for change. There are the anonymous attacks on the leader, and the unverifiable claims about who........

© WA Today