On October 12th, Keir Starmer celebrated his 100th day in office, over three months since Labour’s landslide victory on July 4th. At breakfast that July morning before heading to the University open day, the mood was expectant, despite the seeming inevitability of the election results.
When it came to youth turnout however, the situation has only worsened. Only 37% of eligible 18–24 year olds voted, down ten percentage points since 2019 and much lower than the still shocking national turnout of 60% (only taking into account registered voters).
Looking ahead now, the probation period is certainly over for Starmer. These statistics might suggest that us students and young people wouldn’t be paying much attention to this. Yet, as our writers are proving, in order to interest political parties in the youth vote, we have to engage in politics. Even if, as Varsity reported, a third of Cambridge students don’t take out the tuition fee loan that the government is raising, there are many who do want to engage in such policies that will affect us.
Each of the writers printed here are weighing in on the government’s record so far, from “freebie-gate” to the means testing of the winter fuel allowance. Each represents a different student opinion, as we navigate a political sphere that historically underrepresents our needs.
Their snapshots also allow us to consider how Starmer as a figure is continuing the recent ‘presidentialisation’ of British politics. The first 100 days is typically a metric centred around the US president, where long and frequent US elections don’t afford their leaders the time that Starmer has taken to enact long-term goals.
Yet, this time will quickly disappear. In these final weeks before the Budget, there is a sense that the public have taken their own snapshot of Starmer’s performance so far, and anxiously looked ahead to the next five years.
Luca - Labour sleaze risks wrecking Starmer’s party in scandalous waters
The promise of an honest government rang clear in Labour’s electoral campaign. Calls to ‘End the Chaos’ resonated with many; a new ‘Ethics and Integrity Commission’ appealed to those voters becoming increasingly apathetic amidst a barrage of Tory scandals (need I remind you the details?). An alternative to the sleaze of past governments undoubtedly played a central role in this campaign. Yet, what we are now presented with is not the alternative Keir Starmer was hoping for.
Rosie Duffield recently became the fastest MP in modern history to resign following a general election victory, claiming Starmer and his inner circle had “tarnished and humiliated” others in the Labour Party. This came after it was revealed that Starmer had accepted more than £100,000 of gifts in recent years.
In this instance, the scandal may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Duffield was an ardent critic of Starmer, already on the cusp of leaving the party. Nevertheless, I believe to be the most interesting observation to come out of all this is one that focuses on the wider effect on both giants in our two-party system.
Labour cannot afford any depiction as a party of sleaze. It is simply unsustainable. “Freebie-gate”, does have important implications on the image of the Labour Party that cannot just be ignored. Freebies, however insignificant to some, sear an image of insincerity into the eyes of the electorate, an electorate already filled with the sleazy, untrustworthy image of the modern politician.
After some rather staunch defending of his actions, Starmer has finally decided to pay back more than £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality received since becoming prime minister. This included the covering of costs from six Taylor Swift tickets to designer clothing rentals for his wife, Victoria Starmer. This may have been the right course of action, but this issue is rooted far beyond the details of his deeds.
Labour have not always been the party of good ethics that they are now seen as. Their image during the years of New Labour was hardly up to par (looking at you Mandelson), being hit with successive scandals during their thirteen-year tenure in government. However, I am firmly of the belief that Labour is held to a significantly harsher ethical standard than their Tory counterparts.
“Labour is held to a significantly harsher ethical standard than their Tory counterparts”
There has been a distinctive cultural shift within both parties in the contemporary political landscape – one that, I believe, has created contrasting spaces of scrutiny for each party. Whilst the general public has unequivocally rejected sleazy governance electorally, the Tories’ culture war rhetoric has allowed them to position themselves as the party who does not have to hold themselves to the same, demanding ethical standard that Labour MPs may have to be subject to. A rejection of the wokeness of the social media masses carves a new space of obfuscated accountability for the Tories to hide under.
As such, Labour is left vulnerable. Progressive politics is, by nature, reliant on transparency and responsibility. Coupled with a culture of the almost-dystopian transparency of ‘cancel culture’, the bar of ethical standard is raised. Labour, attempting to meet such a high bar, are left in a predicament that could lead them to electoral collapse. A Starmer-ite Labour that captures the headlines with sleaze and corruption is one that soon finds itself returning to the opposition benches.
A battle of image is commencing in the Commons. The first 100 days of Starmer have only regurgitated the same story of mistrust that defined the previous government. He preaches patience, saying that this difficult transition will take time. But, if he wishes to enact meaningful change from “14 years of Tory chaos” he must steer well clear of sleaze. As a man who loves a good U-turn, turning the ship 180-degrees away from scandal should be his priority.
Sam - Why are we still talking about 'freebie-gate'?
With designer dresses, luxury penthouses and Taylor Swift, “freebie-gate” has all the ingredients of a great tabloid story. Instead, it has enjoyed near-permanent residence on the front pages of our broadsheets for an entire month. If the scandal was Labour’s first test of media management, then they have utterly failed. It has felt as if Downing Street is batting against its own players, with Starmer changing his story even more often than he changes his designer glasses. But, much more precious than any number of free football tickets or expensive clothing is voter trust. If we’re not careful, the opportunity for long-term structural change will be defeated by tabloid fodder.
Don’t get me wrong, the optics of freebie-gate are terrible. Accepting a plethora of donations with one hand, whilst mean-testing a vital winter fuel payment with the other is not exactly a foolproof PR strategy. Labour was so fixated on rigidly following the donation rules that they failed to grasp that the real hurdle is always the public smell test. Unlike Starmer’s gifts, voter mistrust is often non-refundable.
There is always a different standard in government than opposition, but Labour has struggled to track the public mood. When Starmer was pictured at Taylor Swift’s sold-out Wembley gig this June the question on nobody’s lips was ‘Who paid for that? ’ Instead, he gleefully told reporters that his favourite Swift song was ‘Change’ (Taylor’s version I hope).
Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle now claims the government is “updating the rules” of donations to meet the public’s expectations, but this appears to be too little, too late. A damning new YouGov poll shows that the majority (54%) of Brits now believe Labour is “sleazy”, with one in four claiming that Starmer’s conduct in office has been worse than former partying PM Boris Johnson. Whilst the Tories are undoubtedly sitting smugly at the minute, this is good for no one. Against the backdrop of rising populist sentiments across the UK and Europe, having a credible government that voters can trust is in all of our interests.
“who seriously thinks that the knighted, former director of public prosecutions is just a regular bloke”
Perhaps what is most fascinating about the scandal is the extent to which it demonstrates our values-based politics. Freebie-gate is a story that is less likely to make it out of an American newsroom because there just isn’t that same level of cynicism towards money across the pond, or amount of transparency laws. America’s economic divide is even more stark than in Britain, yet they look to politicians as symbols of aspiration rather than for relatability. Our desire for politicians who can relate to us is understandable, but who seriously thinks that the knighted, former director of public prosecutions is just a regular bloke – even if his father was a “toolmaker”!
If we want public figures to pass our test of ordinariness, then they need the institutional framework to do this. Take the PM’s spouse. Unlike in America, they occupy no official role or office, except all the same fashion and lifestyle expectations still apply. Ultimately, if the public disagrees with the private donations that aid this task, then we ought to adjust our expectations. The other alternative is putting a separate clothes budget on the public purse, and we know how that would go down.
Either way, the real danger of this scandal lies in conflating the rule-adhering donation acceptances of the Labour government to the sleaze-fest under the previous Tory administrations. This is the first time in recent memory that we have a Labour government, yet public appetite for long-term structural reform will dry up if we validate the media’s nit-picking. Labour deserves an opportunity to drive real change without us turning up our noses at the first whiff of hypocrisy.
Fatima - Labour is already leaving its core values out in the cold
Starmer’s first 100 days as prime minister were meant to establish Labour’s competence and build public trust after fourteen years of Conservative rule. Instead, his government has stumbled into an unnecessary crisis of its own making. Choosing to target pensioners’ winter fuel payments in the opening act of his premiership reveals a misreading of both political timing and social priorities. The rushed proposal to me demonstrates economic orthodoxy, particularly through cuts to vulnerable groups, and raises serious questions about whether Starmer’s Labour has learned the right lessons from its years in opposition.
In a move that can only be described as a betrayal of Labour values, millions of pensioners are set to lose their winter fuel payments after a shameful vote in Parliament. The government, with Labour at the helm, won the vote to restrict these crucial payments by 348 to 228 – a majority of 120 that speaks volumes about the party’s departure from its roots. As a politics student, and resident Westminster enthusiast, I’m appalled by the way Labour MPs are being held hostage by their own party whip. It’s a disgrace to the principles of representative democracy and a slap in the face to every constituent who voted for change and compassion.
52 Labour MPs didn’t even participate in the vote, including seven ministers. While we don’t know for certain how many deliberately abstained, the numbers suggest a party that has already begun to alienate its own MPs, and already revealed how dangerous the tight grip of party whips could be.
In what should be a badge of honour but is instead a lonely stand, only one Labour MP, Jon Trickett, had the guts to vote against the government. Trickett rightly pointed out that for his constituents, this could ”be a matter of life and death." It’s a damning indictment of the party that only one of its members so far was willing to put constituents before career. This isn’t just an isolated incident from Starmer’s governance, the whip has been removed from Zarah Sultana after she took a stand over the two-child benefit cap.
The party that once prided itself on standing up for the vulnerable is now complicit in pushing them further into poverty. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for anyone who believed in Labour’s promise of a fairer society, only three months after their landslide victory. This vote on winter fuel payments isn’t just about keeping pensioners warm; it’s also about maintaining the warmth of compassion that should be at the heart of Labour’s mission.
“one can witness the corruption of representative democracy in real-time”
The grip of the modern whip system exemplifies how parliamentary structures can breed career politicians at the expense of genuine representation. The winter fuel payment vote under Starmer’s leadership serves as an example of this deficit. When MPs prioritise their standing with party leadership over their constituency’s needs, one can witness the corruption of representative democracy in real-time. The whips’ influence has, for a long time, created an incentive structure where political survival depends more on party loyalty than constituent service. This dynamic was evident in the recent vote, where dozens of Labour MPs who likely harbored private reservations about cutting winter fuel payments chose either abstention or compliance rather than risk their political futures.
The fact that only one Labour MP felt empowered to vote against the measure speaks volumes about how the whip system has evolved from a necessary tool of party management into an instrument of suppression that stifles the very essence of parliamentary democracy. Starmer’s approach to this vote suggests his premiership may further entrench this problematic aspect of Westminster politics, where career advancement hinges on conformity rather than conviction.
If we thought a “week is a long time in politics”, then 100 days seems to be a whole new era. Indeed, many voters hoped it would be, after fourteen years under Conservative rule. There is also a fear conveyed by our writers that, in reality, this new era hasn’t changed the political system itself much at all. If Starmer really wants to sing the song ‘Change’, he needs to understand how the public has grown tired of pointing the finger at the Tories as an obstacle to that change, whether they deserve it or not.
These student accounts reflect a common pattern, of a politics that is still all about appearances. As Luca argued, Labour cannot afford to be seen as the new party of sleaze, however rule-abiding they actually are. In Sam’s piece, we see how the public also cannot forget how their predecessors spent fourteen years breaking the rules. Yet, voters are right to see Starmer as a fresh start and re-evaluate how they view those rules.
Starmer’s Labour can only enact the policies that will (hopefully) solve their image problem if they have effective party dissent, as Fatima addresses. I think that the winter fuel payments should have been means-tested a long time ago, but reduced gradually with input from constituents. Nevertheless, this cannot happen until the structural and cultural reforms are enacted in Parliament that would allow MPs to properly engage with the legislative process without fearing for their careers.
The next 100 days return to our prime minister himself, as he prepares for the Budget, perhaps even with Taylor Swift playing in the background. As our writers have demonstrated, Starmer needs to tackle not simply how he and his Cabinet are viewed by the public, but how they can help their MPs make ‘Change’ from the ground up, to help all of us.
