Keir Starmer’s route to Downing Street runs through Scotland and a study published this week shows Labour could win back half the seats it held at the next general election.
A Scottish Fabians study of the council election results from earlier this year found that a significant proportion of voters who chose the SNP and the Greens as their first preference also backed Labour as their second choice.
Labour has an opportunity to gain up to 24 target seats in Scotland, but only by persuading voters who have the SNP or the Greens as their first choice that Keir Starmer is the only alternative to the Tories in a general election.
The report stated: “Our analysis quantifies the size of the opportunity for Labour and demonstrates that, statistically, 25 seats are within its grasp. There is no doubt there is still a mountain to climb but the path to a Labour government is now clear.”
While Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has pulled his own personal rating and Labour’s back into positive territory with voters, Starmer still has to seal the deal with Scots and voters elsewhere.
Here Record writers assess some of the Labour leader’s strengths and weaknesses that could help or hinder him on the road to Downing Street.
Strengths
Ruthless
Keir Starmer might be holding back on a manifesto to transform the United Kingdom but he has already changed the Labour Party.
Little noticed, because who follows the in and outs from Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, but Starmer wrested back control of the party machinery from the left which held the reins during the Corbyn years.
Starmer has made an example of expelling hard left activists accused of anti-Semitism and symbolically refuses to allow Jeremy Corbyn to take the Labour whip until he issues an apology for Labour’s darkest period.
In short he has made Labour credible again in just three years, a job that took Neil Kinnock two terms and more.
Level headed
Serious times need serious leaders and that's exactly what Keir Starmer is and would be in Downing Street. We've all seen over the last two years that this current Tory party is not up to the job.
Boris Johnson has seen his time as Prime Minister as a period where he can improve on his personal brand and he couldn't care less about the British public.
Starmer, on the other hand, is someone with integrity and will go in on day one, check the state of the finances and make sensible decisions for the good of the country.
Under a Starmer government there wouldn't be any rash decisions or policy made up on the hoof. It would be careful thought out.
Weaknesses
Personality
Starmer’s biggest problem is that he hardly sets pulses racing with his calm, courtroom style in the age dominated by politicians who exploit flag-waving populism.
He found it hard to land a blow on the human jellyfish that was Boris Johnson in Commons exchanges.
But Starmer’s gamble that he would resign if he was fined for breaking covid rules was a bold move that contrasted him with the penalised occupant of Downing Street and displayed the Labour leader’s best quality, his integrity.
The prospect that he might have to go also threw the spotlight on possible replacements, with jockeying by various shadow cabinet members.
But, supporters would argue, that shows there is quite a deep pool of talent on the Labour benches, in contrast to the poor choice the Tory leadership contest offers.
Lack of vision
It has been more than two years since Starmer took over from Corbyn as leader of the party and until recently he has struggled to tell the British people what his vision of country looks like.
He has made the party electable again but with an election in 2024 people are starting to ask serious questions about what he stands for.
Say what you like about Corbyn but he knew what he stood for and people knew his policies. Starmer laid his cards on the table with his energy price cap plan earlier this week.
It was his first big intervention and it allowed him to take the initiative on the biggest problem facing millions of households. The MP for Holborn and St Pancras needs to tell people what he stands for.
By doing that he will stretch his lead in the polls and, you'd think, get the keys to Number 10.
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