Starmer failed because 'governing is hard'

After 14 years of Tory rule (and 40 years of neoliberalism), Keir Starmer needed to make dramatic moves to turn this country around. Instead, he tinkered around the edges then pouted when no one thanked him as their lives continued to worsen.

Starmer is on his way out, and you have to assume Rachel Reeves will follow. Given her response to the following, it’s easy to see why:

#BBCLaurak: "You were absolutely central to Keir Starmers whole project. What do you think, reflecting back, is the biggest reason why its come to an end like this?

Rachel Reeves: "I think governing is hard today" pic.twitter.com/D77acb3MrX

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 12, 2026

Starmer — Excuses

In the above clip, Kuenssberg puts the following to Reeves:

You know, you haven’t just been the Chancellor, you’re a highly experienced politician, you’ve been on the front line, as it were, for a long time, and you were absolutely central to Keir Starmer’s whole project. What do you think, reflecting back, is the biggest reason why it’s come to an end like this?

Reeves’ response:

I think governing is hard today.

If you think governing wasn’t hard back in the day, you may be unaware of this thing we have called ‘human history’.

That aside, she’s not wrong to point out things are tough. The problem is she’s failed to call out the key culprit for Western society’s decline. Here are the problems she identified:

I was just with finance ministers from other European countries earlier this week, And governing is hard across a number of developed economies today. There have been a lot of shocks in recent years, whether that’s COVID, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now the conflict in the Middle East, increasing barriers to trade around the world. And at the same time, those things are going on.

There have been major crises throughout history; the reason we’re increasingly unable to deal with them is because 40 years of neoliberalism stripped the state bare. We’re not expecting Burnham to change things, either, despite his protests to the contrary:

Neoliberalism is the Manchester model: it’s the essence of the Manchester Independent Economic Review girded by New Labour urbanism, and of Osbornite devolution, which created metro mayors as a brokerage system between starved local authorities and Westminster. https://t.co/XadZLrIf8t

— Richard Seymour (@leninology) July 5, 2026

Every year, private companies own more and more of the wealth and assets this country is made of. The more the rich have, the less there is for the rest of us, and the more our government is powerless to do anything besides managing our various debts and dependencies.

Events

On the issue of ‘events’, the government website notes the following:

When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what was the greatest challenge for a statesman, he replied: ‘Events, dear boy, events’.

Napoleon Bonaparte also had something to say on the topic:

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.

A great politician rises to the occasion; a failed politician complains to the BBC.

We don’t have to look far for examples of Labour politicians meeting the moment either:

Reeves: "Andy knows.. the most successful Lab govts are those that combine radical change with credible economic policies"

The most successful Lab govt nationalised 20% of the entire British economy, founded the NHS & built over 800k council houses. What have you & Starmer done? pic.twitter.com/EDjbB2BdsJ

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 12, 2026

Labour achieved the above in 1945, so the event they existed in the aftermath of was World War II. Clearly, then, events don’t have to be an excuse for inaction; they can also be an opportunity for greatness.

With his massive 2024 majority, Starmer could have repeated what Clement Attlee achieved in the post war years and then some. Instead, history will remember him as the PM nobody remembers. A quickly peeled plaster on the festering wound of Thatcherism.

Featured image via the Canary