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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Jack Seale

Keir Starmer: Where Did It All Go Wrong? review – is the PM just useless at politics or is it something more sinister?

Prime Minister Keir Starmer making a statement from Downing Street
‘Asked to describe him in one word, punters’ top responses were “useless” and “weak”’ … Keir Starmer earlier this month. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/AFP/Getty Images

Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular? The basic question is easily answered by political broadcaster Lewis Goodall in his investigation of our prime minister’s historically awful approval ratings. In several elections and one big referendum, Goodall says, Britons have voted “for economic change, for material improvement in their lives”, but it hasn’t come. Starmer toured the UK in a campaign bus with “CHANGE” written on the side, yet life as an ordinary citizen has only got harder.

The extent of the national disgruntlement is well known, but the programme underlines it by revealing the results of a shiny new survey – which is something documentaries of this kind like to commission because it guarantees them news coverage. Those headline-grabbing findings: a majority of respondents say Starmer should resign, that he has been too slow to make change, that he does not have a clear plan. Asked to describe him in one word, punters’ top responses were “incompetent”, “useless” and “weak”.

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