Labour suffers losses across the UK as Reform surges: “Starmer’s survival depends on improvement”

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Now, look, not walking away was the message that Benedict mentioned, a defiant message from Britain's Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer this government's dismal local election performance. Labour losing, as we just heard, hundreds of seats, some unprecedented defeat in Wales, populist reform on a roll. Let's bring in Tom Baldwin on what comes next, whether there are Labour plots afoot to oust and replace him, former Labour head of communications, journalist, and author of Keir Starmer, the biography.

[00:00:25]Welcome to France 24, Tom.

[00:00:28]>> [gasps] >> If you were still within the government machine and you were advising Sir Keir Starmer this morning when he got up to do that press conference, what would you have been saying?

[00:00:39]I'd be advising him to recognize that the voting yesterday was an expression of anger at Labour, at him, and forms of government, and not much else besides. I mean, one of the curious facts about British politics is the current sample is the five most unpopular Prime Ministers in polling history, the history of our country, uh in ascending order, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, and now Keir Starmer. Each one of them has broken the previous one's record for unpopularity.

[00:01:16]I I reckon that that's probably not something to do with the state of the nation rather than just the performance of those individual Prime Ministers. There is a sense of some trea- sort of trea- hair trigger anger and outrage over everything, and that and that makes the job of any government very difficult. But, Keir Starmer definitely has to improve if he's going to stay until the next election. I don't think that's certain. Nor do I think it's certain that he will go. He's got a big speech on Monday, which he's going to try and set out a forward agenda, which I think will include uh language about Britain's relationship with Europe, which will be very closely be Um and I think he's the pressure is easy on him for now.

[00:02:01]The losses were very, very big last night, but actually not at the top end of people's worst fears.

[00:02:09]And the truth of this is that you know, Labour's losing votes in five different ways to five different parties. It's not just about the populist right and reform, it's about the Greens, it's about the Liberal Democrats, it's about the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.

[00:02:23]And you can't really have a coherent story out of last night except that Labour needs to do better. And I think Labour should talk about how it's going to do better rather than these other parties right now.

[00:02:35]Within your book, you talk about the quote here, "Keir is like a ratchet.

[00:02:40]He relentlessly moves in only one direction. He never goes backwards."

[00:02:44]This is a quote in the biography from a friend of Keir Starmer.

[00:02:48]Does therein lie the rub? The problem here that when he does, perhaps over the Mandelson affair and the mistakes admittedly made, there's a problem. What's your reading of it? Cuz the other point I want to make make that you talked about after the release of the book is the identity of Keir Starmer. You said would only be known through his acts of government.

[00:03:06]So, who is he?

[00:03:10]I think it has been such a been more included by government than it was before.

[00:03:17]One of the weird paradoxes of him is that this is essentially a very decent man who distains a lot of the kind of nasty sausage making style of politics that happens, doesn't really want to get involved in that too much, has now been defined by it.

[00:03:38]Um I don't think that is characteristic of him, but it's been very typical of this Prime Minister. That's That's That's part of his problem. Um Yeah, the last 22 months have all been about this advisor in Downing Street or that advisor or this minister or they ambitious for this job or this misstep inside the Westminster game and the village village type politics. It hasn't been nearly enough about the very real problems facing Britain and the world.

[00:04:11]And you can't you need to sort of turn inside out now.

[00:04:17]Turn back towards the British people, towards the real crisis in terms of cost of living in their lives, the real crisis going on around the world, rather than these sometimes rather artificial crisis of Westminster politics, which doesn't do anything about the price of eggs.

[00:04:34]You know those around Sir Keir, colleagues that you will know well within the party, I just wonder whether you think they are privately thinking Sir Keir can pick up the pieces, recover in time to take on Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch at the next election, or whether it's a point now that actually this is a graceful exit. You talked about the positives what he wants to bring.

[00:04:57]What you you think the mood is immediately in in those around him?

[00:05:02]I think the mood around him is that he probably does have some breathing space now. Um the negative reasons for him staying on are still very much in place. That it's not like there's an obvious successor.

[00:05:16]A Labour leadership contest now, which involved the Labour Party turning in which talk about itself or all the posturing, pandering, positioning that would go on to different factions of the Labour Party now, I think would be very bad for Britain. It would be irresponsible for the Labour Party to do that. I think you could see a run on the markets. You could see debt repayments having to go up. You could see interest rates going up. You could actually see Britain's defenses being left exposed by by such a contest. So, it'd be irresponsible to do do now. That doesn't mean that he's necessarily going to fight the next election. What it means, I think, is he's got a breathing space.

[00:05:52]So, he's got a speech on Monday to set out a big agenda for the next 12 to 18 months. And around that, I think, the party can unite because there is, you know, some people want to move now, some people who are ambitious for the job want to move now. I don't think anyone wants to move first. And I think there will probably not be a leadership election now. Who knows? Politics is theater. But I I I suspect there won't be a leadership election in the near future. Um but, you know, he is slightly on notice. He needs to, in a condition of his survival is improvement. A condition of him fighting on for years rather than just months is that he starts showing this government's face towards the British people, not towards the internal machinations of Westminster or indeed the Labour Party.

[00:06:40]I'm just wondering, we're going to talk about the reform in a minute, Tom, but I your view you cleverly and incisively and incisively talked about Sir Keir in the in the biography. Is the money right now on a biography for Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester? Is that where potentially we could be heading? You talked about no immediate frontrunners. Somebody would have to go over the top at this point.

[00:07:04]But actually, is that a is that a a financial investment worth writing right now?

[00:07:10]Um I'm not planning to write a biography of Andy Burnham at the moment. I think I'll probably do that. It's going to happen. Um the Look, he you know, he is he is a candidate, but he's currently unavailable because he's not an MP.

[00:07:23]Other candidates might be regarded as unsuitable or unready or indeed unwilling. And that's the problem, you know, like when when Tony Blair was set a timetable for his departure, there was a very, very obvious successor. That was Gordon Brown. There is no obvious successor now.

[00:07:40]I'm not sure that if Andy Burnham was an MP, he would necessarily be the obvious successor. He'd be a candidate.

[00:07:46]Um You know, this is not the time.

[00:07:50]I mean, we're some we're a few weeks away from running out of petrol in this country.

[00:07:55]You know, there are two wars going on.

[00:07:58]We are facing prospect of having to raise taxes to pay the higher debt payments because of this illegal war that Donald Trump has started in Iran.

[00:08:07]You know, I think it would look absolutely nuts if a low party embarked on a leadership contest now. So, you know They've got 165 seat working majority in the House of Commons. What they need to do is get on and govern. Stop squabbling. Stop talking about themselves. And let's see where we are in 12 to 18 months. That's when actually Andy Burnham's uh term as mayor of Manchester runs out.

[00:08:33]It's possible that Andy Burnham would then return to Parliament. That makes everything much more interesting. But right now is the time to get your head down and start governing rather than talk about replacing the Prime Minister.

[00:08:44]You know, very dangerous time for Britain and the world. When you were in Fleet Street, go back to the '90s, 1992, there's a Sun headline you'll remember, most people do. It's the Sun what won it. If you had to write a headline now, it's the X that lost it for Keir Starmer that's given Reform uh the role here. What is X? What is that thing that you think is perhaps singly more than anything else lost it in this election?

[00:09:10]One of the great joys of my life is I've never had to write Sun headlines. Um The And the thing about a Sun headline is it always simplifies things and exaggerates.

[00:09:22]And you know, there's a lot of different factors. You know, the the truth is is not something that can be put into a single sentence and a single headline, I'm afraid.

[00:09:30]The legacy from the last Conservative government was terrible. You had this unique legacy of failing public services, failing public finances, and failing public trust.

[00:09:39]On top of that, you've had a president elected in America that set the world on fire.

[00:09:43]You know, with tariffs, with wars. You know, every time this government looks like it's lifting its head up off the canvas, you know, a 20-ton weight from America lands back on top of it. It is a very, very difficult job they've got. On top of that, they made mistakes. They made lots of mistakes, unforced errors.

[00:10:01]I think the biggest mistake they've made is not something to do with their opponents. It's what It's something to do with them. That's the biggest factor here.

[00:10:09]And that is they have been caught up in a kind of politics which is of interest [snorts] really to about 500 people in Westminster.

[00:10:21]It's about advisors. It's about, you know, micro decisions about vetting procedures or appointments of X, Y, and Z.

[00:10:29]And one of the reasons why people feel alienated from politics in this country and in lots of parts around the world is that kind of [clears throat] conversation about politics which excludes them.

[00:10:40]They feel that politics is not about them. It's just about the people in power or the people vying for power.

[00:10:45]It's a game.

[00:10:47]And I noticed Donald, I know that he opposes that kind of politics. I know one of the reasons why I think he's very determined to stand and keep keep keep going and and fight on is he doesn't want that to be the reason he is forced out because that's not him.

[00:11:05]He would like to be defined by changing this country for the better, make keeping this country safe, investing for the long term.

[00:11:13]And if he goes down, that won't be his legacy. So, I think he he he he wants He I think he does it as his duty to stay on now. I also think for himself, he wants to be known for something else other than the appointment of an ambassador to the United States who, if he had trusted his own instincts, he wouldn't have appointed him in the first place.

[00:11:34]I'm also fascinated to buy even by the optics today of Nigel Farage in the resplendent sunshine victory with a tie thing a lot of people will be reading into those multi-colors not just the turquoise of the party. One thing that strikes me of just assessing his character Tom.

[00:11:51]We call him a populist and I wonder if populism the pejorative has disappeared from that now. I was listening into interestingly tomorrow is the inauguration of the new Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar. He was asked this week are you a populist? He said I am a populist. I speak for the people on behalf of the people and to the people.

[00:12:06]I'm a proud populist and I wonder you mentioned President Trump with that wind there's a change to the term and actually there's a benefit about for Nigel Farage.

[00:12:20]Well we've got to remember that Nigel Farage is deeply unpopular in this country.

[00:12:25]I think he's the second most unpopular leader after Kier Starmer.

[00:12:28]What he's got is he's got a portion of the electorate an angry portion of the electorate who are voting [clears throat] for him but you know it was you know he's polling around 25% of the polls I think maybe got a little bit more than that yesterday but it's not more than that.

[00:12:42]And there's a large part of the country which is terrified by the prospect of a reform government.

[00:12:47]The question is how you can unite those voters to stop reform. In France you have a much better electoral system which means you know uh the the the very far right uh parties have been kept out of power.

[00:13:01]Uh in Britain we have first past the post which mean could mean Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister on just 23, 24, 25% of the vote. I think that'd be a disaster for Britain.

[00:13:10]Um he hasn't yet had proper scrutiny. I mean there was a story which broke during this local election campaign how he had taken a secret 5 million pound donation from you know non non-domiciled Bitcoin billionaire in Thailand.

[00:13:30]Which he'd never even disclosed. You know, he never he never he you know, he shouldn't disclose he hadn't. For his personal security or whatever, for his lifestyle, who knows?

[00:13:39]And if that happened to a Labour leader, it would [clears throat] have been front-page news for weeks. And there's still this weird thing that you have with Farage, which is a bit like Donald Trump, that it's kind of factored in that he's a bit dodgy, that he does this sort of stuff, and his big forgiving, and no one can get a grip on him. I think the closer the prospect of him actually coming to power becomes, I hope there'll be more scrutiny of him.

[00:14:05]Already they're in power in some councils, and it's been a total disaster. Places like Staffordshire, it's been total chaos. So, you know, the test of them in power now you know, when they if and when they win more councils, the scrutiny that Nigel Farage should get from our media, which is very hostile to the left. A lot parts of the media want Farage to succeed, but I still think there's enough free media in this country to put the spotlight on him.

[00:14:32]And also, you know, voters will need to decide, Mhm. you know, whether they want him as Prime Minister, because politics isn't a referendum.

[00:14:43]And elections aren't referendums on whether you think the government's done a great job. It's a choice between better and worse. And in my mind, I think in the mind of most people in this country, Nigel Farage would be much much worse.

[00:14:58]It's a question about how to unite and build a coalition of those voters.

[00:15:01]Tom, really good to talk to you. And just a point on Nigel Farage, the question's about him as were is there a quid pro quo here in this donation? He maintains it's simply for security, there's nothing the other way. Really good to talk to you, Tom Baldwin.

[00:15:13]>> Dory. Thank you very much for having me.

[00:15:15]Thank you. Former Labour head of communications, former senior journalist both at The Times and The Telegraph, and author of Keir Starmer, the biography.

[00:15:22]Stay with us, we'll be back on France 24 in just a moment.