So how did we get here, with Starmer on the way out after two years? To some extent, it does go back to the beginning. It was not an enthusiastic victory for Labour. Getting rid of the Tories was the top reason people voted for them in 2024, though with their message of 'Change' also resonating.
The cost of living and public services were overwhelmingly the key issues for those who backed Labour. And of the six 'first steps' Labour gave itself, cutting NHS waiting times was clearly the top priority for 2024 Labour voters.
It's, thus, not surprising that things have soured. There's been no respite on the cost of living, with particularly food and energy inflation remaining high, while the NHS and public services have not really improved (no, you don't get thanked for cutting wait lists from vv long to v long, obvs). I know at this point people like to trot out the list of manifesto pledges 'achieved', but that's just not how things work. No one cares if you've nationalised railways (especially if there's no material gain alongside it) if the big stuff that they actually care about hasn't changed. But beyond the lack of improvements on these core issues, Labour's popularity has also deteriorated significantly because of wider specific actions of this government. No matter how many 'unexplainable' think pieces are written, it's also very explainable. They started their time in govt badly, with Starmer's "things will get worse" speech, the corruption of freebiegate and the groundwork-less winter fuel payments announcement ending the honeymoon and going down like cold sick. After 100 days, nearly half of Lab voters were already disappointed.
Only a few months in, the proportion of Britons open to voting Labour had fallen substantially, with the next notable dip on this metric coming around the time of the Spring Statement, with dislike of disability benefit cuts then becoming a recurring complaint among Labour voters.
Ahead of the 2025 local elections, in which Labour lost a record-matching 66% of the seats it was defending, its coalition was already fragmenting in various directions - with roughly similar losses to the LDs, Greens and Reform.
Then came a new flashpoint: the "islands of strangers" speech. Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters reacted strongly against it, with Starmer losing net positive favourability among 2024 Labour voters for the first time, while receiving absolutely no credit from voters on the right.
Indeed, the "summer of immigration" was a huge failure for Labour. Raising the salience of an issue on which they were very weak, allowing Reform to solidify their post-locals gains. Reform voters were aware they were being appealed to, but were unmoved.
The summer of immigration was followed by the autumn-long budget, with weeks of leaks of potential unpopular measures further damaging Labour's reputation on the economy. The party received no benefit when these measures were not announced in the budget itself. By this point, Labour weren't even the most trusted party by Labour voters on many key issues, let alone by the wider public.
Since last autumn, Labour has bottomed out to its most loyal core, culminating in the disastrous 2026 devolved and local elections - annihilated in Wales, humiliated in Scotland, and losing a proportion of cllrs reserved for prior to major GE defeats (inc. record 75% loss in England outside London).
The fact Labour's coalition has fragmented in multiple competing directions has always been a part of this govt's problem. Losses to Reform are concerned by immigration, while greater losses to the Greens and LDs are concerned by other issues, including that very rhetoric on immigration.
But another part of the problem has always been Labour's failure to understand its 2024 coalition, or basic electoral dynamics. It has lost voters to Reform, but these are a fairly unique fragment of their 2024 voters, v unlike those staying loyal or the greater number defecting to the Greens + LDs.
And because of this, it has ignored that many of its most glaring issues are the complaints common across all of their losses - the cost of living, public services, feelings of a lack of delivery and change - the key issues that helped Labour into power in the first place.
In all, it has been a total failure of both politics (a failure to understand the election win, the coalition of the past and the coalition of the future) and government (a failure to deliver the policies necessary to achieve the goals desired of their voters (who reward outcomes not policies)). But leadership has also been an issue. Starmer has not really ever been that popular, contesting GE24 with a net rating of -18, but opinion deteriorated rapidly in office, often for reasons above. His latest rating of -46 put him on a par with May (-49), Johnson (-53) and Sunak (-53) as they quit.
While some claim to be baffled by this unpopularity, it's really just a consequence of heading a govt unpopular for all of the above, while holding no real redeeming traits. The public see him as dislikeable, incompetent, weak, untrustworthy, unprincipled, often with cause. Why would he be popular? In some ways, the biggest failure of leadership has been a failure to understand or learn. Many of the reasons this govt is unpopular were avoidable or at least mitigatable, but realism constantly lost out among Starmer and his team to an outdated and ideological understanding of Labour voters. As to where next? Burnham currently holds a more positive image than Starmer did when he took office, though this is ofc far from everything. The govt still has to deliver on those two key issues, while Labour cannot continue to alienate large sections of its coalition. The question: do they learn?