Finally, and belatedly, an honest picture of Keir Starmer has been allowed to emerge. It’s been quite a journey. At first, he was hailed as Labour’s saviour, finally arrived. That gave way to pleas that he was basically a decent person, new to politics and just needing time. Now, a different impression is forming—that he’s actually quite a bad apple. To quote a brutal recent take from a Labour insider speaking to Politico: “Lots of people think Keir Starmer is a good man who’s out of his depth. Wrong. He’s an asshole who’s out of his depth.”
The accusations are now coming thick and fast. He can’t manage teams. He throws people under the bus to save himself. He can’t do the job. The whole Peter Mandelson affair—the latest twist being that Mandelson failed his security vetting, and Starmer claims he wasn’t told—has at least one silver lining. As his own ministers distance themselves from him and give up on live TV, even loyal supporters can’t keep up their tiresome, misguided speculation that he might turn things around. The broad consensus is that Starmer is beyond saving now, and his fate is just a matter of time. So what happens next?
The answer is drift: a government that’s aimless and mired in scandal. This had been building for a while under a weakened Starmer, and has now been sped up by a scandal that won’t end, cemented by his refusal to step down, and locked in by a lack of appetite for a leadership contest or agreement on a successor. So we enter the zombie era—one we should all be familiar with by now. There have been four such periods over the past decade, some shorter than others. Theresa May clung on as her Brexit deal hit a dead end. Boris Johnson was a dead man walking for seven months between the Partygate revelations and his resignation. Twenty-seven days passed between the disastrous mini-budget and Liz Truss’s resignation—more than half her entire time in office. And Rishi Sunak? Well, he was an interim prime minister from day one, tasked with the impossible job of steering the Tories away from disaster.
A prime minister staying in office out of inertia and lack of options is now more the norm than a capable leader guiding the country. These premierships don’t just coast along in a stable holding pattern until a resolution; they lead to a pointless, damaging style of governance. One where there’s no sharp collapse in the economy or public services, but a slow, steady decline in living standards, and, more broadly, a loss of any sense of shared fate under an attentive and responsible leader. The repetition of this pattern across different governments adds to a wider political paralysis, and public frustration and disengagement. A zombie government is distracted, listless, unambitious, and uncreative.
The gap between the real-world challenges and the concerns of Number 10 is huge. As Labour figures out what to do with itself, what’s at stake isn’t just the prime minister’s future, but the fate and direction of the country. The Iran war has pushed up fuel prices and raised inflation. The International Monetary Fund has warned that Britain faces the biggest hit to growth from the Iran war of all G20 economies, and the joint highest inflation rate in the G7. The UK’s vulnerability to energy shocks is made worse by the existing cost of living crisis and high food prices. So far, the prime minister doesn’t seem to have a plan to get ahead of—or even offer reassurance about—what looks set to be a prolonged crisis.
And then there are the serious challenges to social cohesion posed by the toxic Reform party, which Labour has completely failed to tackle. The cultural and political climate has been poisoned by anti-migrant hostility, and Labour has only fed into that with harsh measures and rhetoric that echoes Enoch Powell, while not hurting Reform one bit. As Labour was hammered in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Starmer had nothingKeir Starmer keeps making outrageously inappropriate comments about “sectarian politics.” Labour is heading for its worst local election performance in decades next month, with Reform expected to make big gains. So where’s the urgent effort to get ahead of this? From Starmer himself, there’s silence.
Zombie prime ministers usually take one of two approaches to governing. The first is to try and stay relevant by announcing eye-catching, crowd-pleasing policies—like Sunak’s U-turn on net zero, or Johnson’s first version of the Rwanda deportation plan. The second is to do nothing at all, distracted by putting out fires and fending off internal challenges. That’s the route Johnson took, which ended with mass rebellion among MPs and ministers when he refused to resign.
Whichever path Starmer chooses, the result is a public that feels completely disconnected from and dismissive of an absent government, caught up in distant scandals or bizarre, irrelevant policies. This is the kind of dysfunctional feudalism Alexis de Tocqueville described in his book on the French aristocracy, The Old Regime and the Revolution. He argued that the French nobility clung to their privileges long after they’d given up the duties that gave them legitimacy—and it was that abandonment that sparked revolution.
Starmer represents that political nobility; he’s a symbol of something much bigger than himself. But long before his own premiership began, we had already entered an age of zombie politics, made worse by the drifting eras that came before, defined by political leaders who felt entitled to power but failed to use it for real, practical change.
He is also the end result of a progressive politics that hasn’t managed to redefine its role in a changing Britain. Its traditional industrial and working-class heartlands have been worn away by decades of prioritizing capital over labor. It hasn’t tackled the many ways the economy is now set up to benefit a shrinking number of the highly paid or well-off. And it hasn’t built a strong sense of meaning and values in a world where increasingly harsh and cynical forces—from the US to the Middle East—create a moral leadership vacuum. Starmer’s blandness made it easy for fans to project all sorts of fantasies onto him. But his emptiness was always his defining trait, making him the right person to lead this hollow version of progressive politics—a leader who is more of an empty vessel than an agent of change.
The only hope for the coming zombie months or years is that Starmer’s time in office won’t end in another false start. Whatever or whoever comes next must understand that Labour needs to deliver more than just managing the broken legacy of its predecessors. Unless we boldly take on the challenges to the political and economic status quo, the drift will catch up with them too.
Nesrine Malik is a columnist for the Guardian.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the concept of Zombie politics in the context of Keir Starmers premiership written in a natural conversational tone
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What exactly is Zombie politics
Its a term for a political system that keeps moving forward mechanically but is dead inside The government goes through the motionsholding meetings passing laws giving speechesbut lacks real vision energy or the ability to solve big problems Its politics on autopilot
2 Why are people saying Starmers premiership is a Zombie government
Critics say Starmers government feels hollow They argue he won the election by being cautious and avoiding big promises but now in power he seems to have no bold plan He reacts to events instead of shaping them and his leadership feels like a placeholder rather than a driving force
3 Is this just about Starmer or is it a bigger problem
Its both While Starmer is the latest example the term Zombie politics describes a general trend in many Western democracies Parties become obsessed with winning the next poll or avoiding media attacks so they stop taking risks or offering real change Starmer just happens to be the face of it right now
4 Whats the difference between Zombie politics and just boring politics
Boring politics can still be effectivelike a dull but competent manager Zombie politics is worse its ineffective Its not just dull its paralyzed Nothing gets fixed because the system has no heartbeat Boring can work zombie just shuffles along
Advanced Questions
5 What specific policies or actions make Starmers government seem zombielike
A few examples scrapping the green investment pledge sticking with the twochild benefit cap and keeping the Rwanda deportation scheme alive for months before dropping it Each move feels like a survival tactic not a strategy He often cancels or waters down his own ideas before they launch
6 How did the Labour Party end up here after such a big election win
Starmers win was more a rejection of the Tories than an embrace of Labour He ran
