DAN HODGES: Starmer could have survived a ‘political close to demise expertise’ by the pores and skin of his enamel, however insiders say it could be too late to avoid wasting his social gathering

Back in 2007, around the time Tony Blair was preparing to hand over the reins of power to Gordon Brown, I was drinking with a minister with whom I’d worked closely during the New Labour years. Would Gordon be able to turn around the party’s fortunes, I asked him?

‘No,’ he replied. ‘The problem is our brand was built on being fresh, vigorous and contemporary. And for a while we were. But that was a decade ago. New Labour just isn’t “new” any more.’

On Monday, Keir Starmer survived – by the skin of his teeth – a political near-death experience.

But after 30 years the New Labour project, of which I was a tiny part, did not. With the fall of Peter Mandelson, the departure of Tony Blair’s former adviser Tim Allan as Downing Street director of communications, and fingers now pointed at Jonathan Powell (Blair’s former chief of staff and Starmer’s national security adviser), a line has been drawn under the era of ‘red rose modernisation’.

Mandelson suggested replacing the party’s red flag logo with a red rose in 1986. For Starmer, the decision to throw that tainted bloom in the bin has come too late to buy him a reprieve of more than a few weeks. And, very possibly, too late to save his party.

Recently, obituaries chronicling Sir Keir’s ruinous tenure have been penned. Each present a similar thesis. In short, Starmer had no plan for office, tried to delegate national governance to deeply flawed surrogates, then threw up his arms in self-righteous horror when it blew up in his face.

This is at least partly correct. Presented with an imploding Tory government, Sir Keir simply sat back and waited for power.

He also opted for a characteristically disastrous senior appointment selecting Sue Gray as his chief of staff with responsibility for drawing up his government’s first 100 days strategy – only to find out on his first day in Downing Street that no such plan existed.

When Starmer woke up to the vacuum at the heart of his political mission, he didn’t simply embark on a round of misdelegation. Instead, he subcontracted out his entire strategy, programme and philosophy to Blairites.

Mandelson. Powell. Allan. Pat McFadden (Tony Blair’s former political secretary). Liz Lloyd (Blair’s former deputy chief of staff). Alan Milburn (Blair’s former health secretary). All were parachuted into the heart of the floundering Starmer operation, with predictable consequences.

As the emails and texts demanded by the House of Commons emerge, it will become clear not just the extent to which Mandelson was pulling the diplomatic levers of power in Washington, but how he was exerting control of the entire Starmer operation. 

As one minister told me at the weekend: ‘There’s so much more to come out. It’s not just what Peter was doing with Epstein. If he was prepared to leak information to him, do you think that was the only person he was dealing with?’

As far as we know, none of Mandelson’s Blairite colleagues were abusing their positions in the same malign way. And, individually, each brought some experience to the role.

But collectively they were operating from muscle memory last flexed over a quarter of a century ago – and which is totally out of date for our vastly changed society in the 2020s.

The politics of the 1990s are light years away from the social-media driven populism shaping today’s national agenda. So when Starmer placed the Blairites in control, it was like asking the Wright Brothers to fly the Space Shuttle.

The other issue was that by trying to crudely bolt elements of Blairism on to his creaking administration, he was doing so with metal whose properties he barely understood. Starmer saw New Labour primarily as a vehicle for internal party transformation.

In fact, the heavy lifting of restoring internal discipline was done by Neil Kinnock, a former Labour leader.

Under Blair, New Labour did indeed look inward. But three quarters of the battle was convincing Labour activists that strong defence, a tough stance on law and order and fiscal responsibility were fully aligned with the party’s traditional ideals and ethos.

Sir Keir thought it simply involved chucking out a few Corbynites, then going to the country saying: ‘We don’t hate Jews any more. Vote Labour.’

Similarly, he didn’t understand that once in government, lofty rhetoric cannot fill the gap where your policy offer is supposed to be. Like it or loathe it, Blair’s New Labour government hit the ground running, dominating the agenda with independence for the Bank of England, a minimum wage and reforms to the House of Lords.

Starmer’s team spent their first weeks in office fighting about desks and WFH, handing out Downing Street passes to their favourite donors – such as designer spectacles and suits provider Lord Alli – and issuing the same press release about breakfast clubs.

But the biggest problem with Starmer’s desperate grab for the New Labour playbook was that by lunging for it he couldn’t avoid sticking two fingers up at the people who once supported him. According to a Labour minister, the Mandelson scandal has been getting major cut-through with focus groups. And not just because it involves Epstein and his appalling crimes.

‘Peter still gets name recognition,’ the minister told me, ‘they know him. And they don’t like him. He reminds them of everything they hate about politics and politicians.’

Belatedly, Starmer has recognised that. In a speech yesterday he started to bang the class-war drum, declaring he was ‘proud’ to have ‘the most working-class Cabinet in history’.

Ed Miliband was also on Radio 4’s Today programme stressing Starmer will now focus on the ‘class divide’. Meanwhile, it was revealed a draft campaign website for Angela Rayner went live in January with the promise: ‘Angela Rayner is running for leader to fight for working-class Britain.’

And so now, in a desperate bid to save his skin, Starmer will throw Blairism out with the bathwater and lurch Left.

There is talk of (another) major reshuffle, one in which remaining Blairite standard-bearers such as Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle are demoted, and members of the Left are welcomed into the fold. You can be sure this marks the end of New Labour.

I’m told there will be guarantees to safeguard the welfare budget, more action on workplace rights and a further pivot to the pro-Palestine camp.

And, like everything else Starmer has attempted, it will prove an unmitigated disaster. Because while the Labour Party may not quite have given up on him, the people of Britain have.

So Starmer will march his troops to shore up defences against the Greens and whatever ramshackle hard-Left operation Corbyn and Zarah Sultana finally cobble together. Nigel Farage and a rising Kemi Badenoch will surge into the vacated space. And those Labour ministers and MPs pledging fealty will finally put the Prime Minister out of his misery.

But the fact that Blairism is finally being laid to rest is a good thing. I was there at its birth and I won’t mourn its passing. And after the sordid saga we’ve been witness to over the past few days, neither should anyone else.