Starmer Revisited – Where Did It All Go Wrong?
About this episode
The episode revisits the failures of Keir Starmer's leadership and the implications for Andy Burnham's upcoming tenure.
Welcome to a bonus episode of Origin Story. For the first time, we’re revisiting an earlier episode to ask what we got right and what we got wrong about the subject. Just before the July 2024 election we profiled Labour’s PM-in-waiting Keir Starmer and made some cautiously optimistic guesses as to what his government might look like — the promise and the pitfalls. Well, it turned out to be mostly pitfalls. As Starmer steps down and Andy Burnham steps up, we perform the autopsy. Did Starmer have fundamental personal weaknesses that doomed him to failure? What happened to the moral principles and managerial competence that defined his career before he became Labour leader? What mistakes did he make and what opportunities did he miss? Has Starmer killed the theory that a boring technocrat is the antidote to right-wing populism? How did he become so hated? What legacy has he bequeathed to Burnham (it wasn’t all bad news)? How much of this can we blame on Morgan McSweeney? And is it fair to call Keir Starmer the worst Labour prime minister ever? The ghost of Ramsay MacDonald certainly hopes so. Join us for an in-depth reflection on what went wrong for Starmer and the lessons we can…
People in this episode
Hosts: Ian Dunt, Dorian Lynskey
Topics covered
- politics
- Labour Party
- Keir Starmer
- Andy Burnham
- government
- leadership
- failure analysis
Keywords
- Keir Starmer
- Andy Burnham
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Origin Story
Places: Union Chapel, London
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- Think Tanks – Part Two – The Room Where It Happens
- Think Tanks – Part One – What’s the Big Idea?
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