Has any government crashed as quickly as this one? Yes, and it’s not even close...

Almost one year into the Starmer administration and the question is already being asked: has a government ever crashed so quickly? There’s no denying the dismal poll ratings in which Labour now regularly runs behind Reform UK, the disappointing election results, mixed signals on the economy, U-turns, disarray in the parliamentary party and talk of “regime change” (in No 10, not Tehran). There is obvious cause for Labour supporters to be disheartened, but some reasons to be cheerful too…

It’s not as bad as it looks. On the basis that, at the last general election, Keir Starmer converted Boris Johnson’s 2019 Commons majority of 81 into a Labour overall majority of 174, it was indeed a stunning, historic performance – the best “conversion” for any party since the Second World War. However, such a picture flatters to deceive. It was all done with fabulously tepid public support. Labour’s vote share was 33.7 per cent, less than any other winning party in modern times, with only about one in five of the electorate expressing positive support.

Starmer’s personal ratings were also modest as he went into the general election, certainly by comparison with, say, Tony Blair's stellar image in 1997. It’s true that Labour poll ratings on the eve of the 2024 election were over-optimistic, and it’s a little hazardous to compare real results with polls. But the overall point remains; Labour were never as loved as we might falsely imagine or discern from the eccentricities of the British electoral system.

Yes, in terms of a government emerging from a general election with a comfortable majority and sinking so low within a year of that result. But if we extend our timescale a little, it’s also true that almost every such government suffers “mid-term blues”. Blair’s prolonged honeymoon after 1997 is a notable exception, and some administrations have gone into apparently terminal decline within about two to three years, but have recovered. The most spectacular post-war example would be how the Suez crisis in the autumn of 1956 wrecked Anthony Eden’s government after he’d won an easy victory over Labour in May 1955. In that case, a change of leader helped preserve Tory rule the next time round.

Another precipitous decline in reputation and standing – actually faster than Starmer’s – followed John Major’s election win in April 1992. His majority was slight (21 seats overall) but he’d beaten Labour by a solid seven percentage points. However, on 16 September 1992, “Black Wednesday”, sterling was forcibly ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Tory party’s reputation for economic competence was shredded with it. An impressive economic recovery followed, but with little beneficial effect on the divided Tories’ poll ratings. Even at the time, it looked like the die was cast for Labour’s triumph in 1997.

Slightly exceptional must be Boris Johnson’s squandering of the historic achievement he enjoyed in 2019. He made his own share of mistakes – overpromising, underdelivering, Partygate, sleaze and misleading parliament – but the effect of the Covid pandemic on the economy also had something to do with his mostly self-inflicted fall from grace. After all, his personal ratings peaked during the vaccine rollout in 2021, and he was gone a year or so later when party and public lost patience with him.

Margaret Thatcher. Her government, elected in May 1979, had a decent mandate but fell into deep economic trouble and disarray by 1981 in the depths of recession. She was rescued by a divided opposition, economic recovery, the “Falklands factor” and a certain steadiness of nerve. A landslide followed in 1983.

They don’t win that many elections. A close analogy would be Harold Wilson’s second administration; he was also elected with a landslide – a majority of 97, in 1966 – but by 1968, the pound had been devalued, his economic planning policy was dead, and the government’s popularity had collapsed, with historically bad local election and by-election results. However, Wilson and his chancellor, Roy Jenkins, took Reeves-style tough decisions and went through the “hard slog” of tax rises and spending cuts to stage a formidable recovery. They still had to sacrifice major legislation to backbench revolts (reform of the Lords and the trade unions respectively), but were not far off winning the 1970 general election. Instead, the victor was a Tory leader most had written off as hopelessly bad at the job.

Well, Starmer is only the third Labour leader to win a general election, and he’s already been in office longer than Liz Truss, who breaks all records for political dive-bombing (albeit some distance past the previous general election). Starmer will probably surpass Alex Douglas-Home’s 363 days in No 10 (1963-64), and if he makes it to the next general election, he’ll beat Johnson, Callaghan, Heath and May for time in office. He might even win again to complete his “decade of renewal”.

A volatile electorate, the intervention of Reform UK and the Tories’ extreme weakness might throw up all sorts of surprises. History proves that economic success can sometimes yield dramatic post-nadir electoral dividends. It might happen. If so, by 2033 or 2034, Starmer could look back on his current travails as mere “noises off”. But not yet.