In the long and dishonourable history of British political disappointment, few figures have managed to unite the nation quite like Keir Starmer. Tories loathe him because he exists; the Labour left loathe him because he exists while refusing to be Jeremy Corbyn; the centre loathe him because he sounds like a man reading out the terms and conditions for a pension plan; and the apolitical majority loathe him for the simple reason that he is now the face that launches a thousand sighs whenever the news comes on. It is a rare and almost admirable achievement: a hatred so universal that it feels almost churlish to question it, like complaining that rain is wet.
One says 'hatred,' of course, in the mild, British sense of the word—the way one hates the new postcode lottery rules or the price of a pint. It is not the full-throated, pitchfork-and-torch hatred once reserved for Margaret Thatcher or, in more innocent times, for traffic wardens. It is a low, background hum of resentment, the sort of feeling that makes you change channel when his face appears, then change back again because the other side is Rishi Sunak doing his best impression of a man who has just discovered he is overdrawn by several billion pounds.
Starmer hatred is democratic. It crosses class, region, age group, and—most impressively—political affiliation. Even people who voted for him seem to do so in the spirit of a man choosing the least uncomfortable chair in a waiting room full of nails. The beauty of the phenomenon is its sheer irrationality. Nobody can quite put a finger on the original sin. He has not (yet) started any unpopular wars. He has not been caught snorting the ashes of the Queen. He has not even, as far as we know, accepted a free suit from a donor who turned out to be a pop star with strong opinions about Israel. His crimes are subtler. He is competent, which is unforgivable in a country that still half-believes its leaders should be lovable rogues or grand visionaries. He speaks in whole sentences, without shouting, which feels suspiciously like taking the public for adults. Worst of all, he looks like a man who files his tax returns early and enjoys it.
There was a brief, shimmering moment—roughly between July 4 and July 5, 2024—when some of us thought we might learn to love him. The exit poll came in, the Tories were obliterated, and for one glorious evening the pubs rang with the sound of people saying “Well, at least he’s not Liz Truss.” It was the political equivalent of the morning after a particularly bad breakup when you wake up next to someone perfectly pleasant and think, “This could work.” Then he started governing, and the national hangover set in. He promised change, naturally. All politicians promise change; it is the political equivalent of “I’ll call you.” What he has delivered so far is the sort of change you get when you move the furniture around in a room that still desperately needs redecorating. The winter fuel allowance is trimmed, the rhetoric on immigration toughens, the green investment plans are scaled back, and suddenly half the Labour Party is gazing at him the way vegetarians regard a friend who has quietly ordered a steak.
Meanwhile the right-wing press, which spent years insisting he was a Marxist sleeper agent, now complains that he is betraying socialist principles. It is the ultimate compliment: both sides hate him for letting the other side down. One must admire the economy of it. In the old days a prime minister had to work hard to alienate everybody. Tony Blair had to invade Iraq. Gordon Brown had to lose an election he was supposed to win. David Cameron had to call a referendum. Theresa May had to dance. Boris Johnson had to—well, exist in three dimensions. Starmer has managed the same result simply by turning up on time, wearing a tie, and declining to set anything on fire. It is efficiency taken to the level of art.
Part of the problem, if we are being charitable, is that he looks like the actuary he might have been in another life. There is something inescapably actuarial about the man: the neat hair, the tidy suits, the faint suggestion that he has already calculated your life expectancy and is quietly disappointed. One watches him at the dispatch box and waits for the spark that never comes. He is fluent, certainly; he is clear; he is occasionally ruthless. What he is not is alive in any way that registers on screen. Television, that cruel medium, requires a flicker of mischief, a hint of danger, even a touch of derangement. Starmer offers the viewer the mild reassurance of a man who has never in his life lost his temper in public, and possibly not in private either. It is like watching a very expensive watch tick: admirable, precise, and utterly devoid of soul.
And yet—and this is where the hatred becomes interesting—there is something almost heroic in his refusal to pander. Most modern politicians treat the electorate like a nervous date, forever checking their phone and wondering whether to lean in for the kiss. Starmer behaves as though the relationship is already settled and he is now explaining the joint mortgage. It is bracing, in its way. After years of leaders who grinned too much, shouted too much, lied too much, here is a man who seems to regard charisma as a form of moral weakness. One suspects he would rather be caught shoplifting than telling an anecdote about his childhood.
The irony, of course, is that we asked for this. For years we complained about showmen, about bluster, about leaders who treated politics as performance art. Be careful what you wish for: we have ended up with a leader who treats politics as a job. The complaints now are the same ones we once directed at civil servants: too cautious, too incremental, too fond of process. We wanted a manager; we got one. The national mood is that of a child who asked for a bicycle and received a very sensible pair of shoes. There is nothing to Starmer. He is a sphinx without a riddle, a pudding without a theme, a late middle-aged human rights lawyer that had done sufficiently well for himself that he fancied a career change. Most blow their mid-life crises on affairs with au pairs or fancy sports cars. He decided to become Prime Minister, despite having no obvious interest in politics, policy or improving the country. We are all victims of his viciousness.
Perhaps in the end the hatred is not really about Starmer at all. It is about us. We do not know what we want, only that whatever is on offer is not it. We want vision but we do not want ideology; we want competence but we also want excitement; we want change but we become hysterical the moment anything actually changes. Starmer is merely the latest mirror held up to our confusion, and mirrors are rarely popular with people who do not like what they see. So we go on hating him, quietly, politely, in the way only the British can hate. We hate him when he speaks, we hate him when he is silent, we hate him when he wins, and we will almost certainly hate him even more if he starts losing. It is a hatred born not of passion but of disappointment, the slow realisation that politics, like life, rarely delivers heroes. The best it can manage is someone who keeps the lights on and the trains running approximately on time, and even that feels like a swindle.
Poor Keir. He will never be loved, and he probably knows it. In a saner world that would be the beginning of wisdom. In this one it is just another reason to change the channel.