Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to follow in Donald Trump’s footsteps and appear more regularly in front of the media.
Labour MPs have called on the prime minister to act more like the US president, who has made surprise calls to live TV news shows and held long meetings with cabinet members on camera.
The result is that Mr Trump dominates news coverage in the US, with a growing number of senior Labour figures believing Sir Keir would do well to adopt the tactic.
But Sir Keir’s public interventions are limited and usually reserved for what Labour deem major announcements, such as the PM’s decision this month to ease rules on carmakers transitioning to electric vehicles in the wake of the US tariffs being imposed.
At press conferences, Sir Keir only takes a handful of questions from pre-selected journalists, often ignoring other members of the media who attend.
One minister told The Guardian: “Trump and [the vice-president] JD Vance have shown the advantage of getting out there and not worrying about making mistakes.
“In the run-up to the election, Vance did multiple disastrous podcast interviews, but people did not focus on them for long. Eventually he started getting noticed for the things he wanted to say.”
They added: “That style of media strategy seems to make a lot more sense than making the occasional appearance on the [BBC] Today programme or Laura Kuenssberg.”
Another Labour MP added: “I watched the first few days of the Trump administration with envy. He was out there making announcements all the time.
“Imagine if we had done the same thing. It doesn’t even matter whether your announcements are going to happen – the point is you are telling people who you are and what you want to do.”
The Trump administration’s calculation appears to be that the risk of making gaffes is outweighed by the benefit of being more visible.
And Boris Johnson’s former chief of communications, Lee Cain, who has since established public relations firm Charlesbye, backed Sir Keir taking a more proactive approach.
He told The Guardian: “Politicians need today to be able to communicate in 30 seconds on TikTok, but also for three and a half hours on Joe Rogan.
“The ‘line to take’ is dying, the ‘grid’ is dying,” he added. “That whole process where we send politicians on to news programmes with a goal of not saying anything, not creating news, not making a mistake, killing authenticity – is a failing strategy.”
A recent analysis by his firm found Mr Rogan’s podcast now attracts almost as many daily listeners in the UK as BBC Radio 4’s entire output for the same period.
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