Quote of the day 8th September 2025

Extracts from Andrew Neil's opening comments on today's Times at One:

"Last week was Keir Starmer’s worst since he moved into 10 Downing Street. To be fair, there haven’t been many good weeks for him. It’s been a grim first year for the PM. 

And there’s no reason to think things can only get better. Indeed there’s every reason to think they’ll get even worse. 

For a start he now faces what could be a bruising contest for the Labour deputy leadership to replace disgraced Angela Rayner. 

This is likely to expose all the party’s internal divisions and simmering discontent with Starmer. He risks ending up with a deputy leader around which opposition can rally — the new leader in waiting.  

The mood in the Party is ‘openly seditious’ says one Labour MP.  Starmer has ‘no authority’ within the parliamentary party, says another. Both statements are true. 

There is no love for Starmer on the Labour backbenches or the wider Labour Party. Instead there is increasing disillusion. Unlike Rayner, Starmer has no base in the party to fall back on. 

Speaking of Rayner, she’s not finished yet. She’ll begin life on the backbenches, the epitome of loyalty. But as the autumn leaves disappear in the wind and rain turns to snow she’ll crank up the criticism and become a thorn in Starmer’s side. After all there’s no love lost between them. 

But worse than that awaits the PM. His personal ratings are in the tank and his government can barely manage 20% in the polls. And that’s before Jeremy Corbyn manages to launch his new venture on the Left, which could take another five points off Labour, leaving it languishing around 15%."

"And all this before Rachel Reeves’ second budget in November, which is likely to be as unpopular as her first last October. Taxes will rise yet again. The only questions are which ones and by how much. 

The short answer — a lot of taxes will rise and by billions. Her first budget knocked the stuffing out of the economy. Her second looks like a repeat performance. 

Reeves has been kept in position to deliver a second dollop of misery of her own making, given the mess of her first Budget. She might not be long in post after that. But where would that leave Starmer?

“He has no vision and never will have," says an anonymous paper privately doing the rounds of Labour MPs this summer. His government is ‘not a tragedy, it’s a farce’ it helpfully adds. 

The PM is now on his third head of communications in under a year. He mistakenly thinks his message is being badly delivered when the real problem is he doesn’t have a discernible message. 

In truth he never promised much other than a more competent management of the status quo than the Tories. And even that he’s failed to deliver. 

At a time when Labour’s support among its traditional working class base has almost disappeared it’s a sign of how removed from plain folk it’s become that Dame Emily Thornberry thinks she should be the next deputy leader. 

So it’s been a tough ride for the PM. But perhaps the worst is yet to come. If Reeves is forced out soon after her next Budget he’ll face 2026 without a shield.  And his days then may indeed be numbered."