Is Starmer really a leader?

So to kick off 2026, Starmer is manifesting.  He is asking the universe to deliver his goals. In his Laura Kuenssberg interview he was chanting his affirmations that "I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027".

I guess he wasnt very clear what seat he meant - was it a seat in No 10 or Laura's interview seat.

My personal take is that this new age manifesting, affirming and asking the universe to deliver is little different to praying and asking your fairy godmother to do something.  It's not really a solid substitute for good old fashioned work and action.

He keeps saying "Government must go further and faster to deliver change" but I'm still unsure what change Starmer wants to deliver.  The change Rachel has delivered (rather than 2TK has delivered) has caused inflation to double, unemployment to dramatically rise and the UK's standing as the fastest growing economy in the G7 to spiral downwards to the slowest growing economy in the G7. 

Unfortuantely this is not the change I want to see and if Labour are going to go further and faster at delivering this kind of change then I am deeply worried about the future.

His other favourite phrase is we need a reset. Again very ambiguous.

It is clear that Starmer is not a leader.  He's clearly a legal bureaucrat and I have to question whether he was/is a very good lawyer.  Looking at how he acts I would definitely not want him to represent me in court as my barrister.  He lacks attention to detail.  He doesnt understand process. He's a weak orator.  He clearly shows when he's ruffled. The list goes on.

That's not to say being a leader is easy. I would say managing a team of 50 is relatively straightforward beyond that it becomes harder to keep everyone aligned to the same goal. I have run teams of 2,000 which only worked well because everyone had a common goal. Clear timescales for delivery with clear consequences for failure. Had the team had different or even conflicting goals I suspect I would have been less successful.

So here Starmer has clearly failed. It is clear back benchers are doing their own thing. They are not aligned to a common goal or purpose. In fact no-one knows what the common goal or purpose is. He has failed to give clear goals and visions to his own team let alone communicating that to the electorate. To the outside world they are in chaos and I suspect that is what it is.

His cabinet is around 26 people. That suggests he has around 24 different priorities - ie no clear focus. Managing 25 direct reports is a challenge. For someone that doesn't have attention to detail or lacks big picture picture visions I suspect his cabinet meetings are chaos and a talking shop. Zoom out and he has 403 MPs so I would expect the problems with his lack of leadership skills to be massively magnified.

Starmer became leader of the Labour party in 2020. You don't become a leader by having the title. You have to actually lead.

His one clear strategy before being elected was not to say anything and wait for the conservatives to sabotage themselves which they did an excellent job of.

So he has 4 years to read books on leadership, attend training and learn how to be a leader. Maybe even attempt to lead the MPs he had.  I think it is clear he did no such thing and wasted the opportunity of being the leader in waiting. 

Corbyns leadership style was consensus driven. He clearly has strong moral beliefs but lacked any business acumen. He was clearly a people person.

I struggle to see what Starmer's leadership style is. He appears to have no attention-to-detail so delegates. Actually he does not delegate since that implies keeping updated on delivery and steering & guiding the delegated task - which he doesn't appear to do. He abdicates responsibility rather than delegates. He definitely does not appear to be a people person. He seems to view people as objects or things. This really came across when he was challenged by committee about farmers committing suicide in response to his farm tax. Clearly zero empathy.

When subordinates make mistakes strong leaders protect them  and use the mistake as a learning experience to grow the subordinate. Here Starmer seems to blame others and throw people under a bus. This behaviour leads people to not make decisions through fear of reprisals and therefore subordinated upwards delegate decision making back to Starmer to ensure they wont make a mistake.  

Given most of Starmers MPs have never done anything in the real world eg worked for business, there's not much experience so he should be mentoring them, helping them grow etc. Oh hang on. Starmer has never had to run a real business either.  He relies upon being the son of a toolmaker as his business credentials.

Since he doesnt have attention to detail nor big picture understanding (and the  hence the consequences of decisions) that means he makes poor decisions. As everyone, fearful of making the wrong decision, asks him to decide, he will be overwhelmed by everything coming to him. Has natural style is to "delegate" as be cant be bothered with the detail. The poor thing must feel bombarded.

If this is left to fester - his style will be viewed as dictatorial as he is the only one allowed to make decisions.  His team will be apathetic and breed contempt for him resulting in embarrassing leaks and leadership challenges as they expend more energy on internal challenges than running the country.

I strongly suspect Starmer does not have awareness of what is happening and to make matters worse he does not have the leadership skills to halt the festering decay in morale and turn around the team motivation.

I suspect the 'cover your arse" culture is thriving.

Yet Starmer believes he is one of the only good guys and is on a crusade to force his faux moral values on us no matter what the cost. If we don't have the same values we must be evil, right wing, etc (delete as appropriate).

All mistakes are rationalised as the enemy thwarting his crusade. It's almost like a David Brent episode or Britas Empire episode.

It's therefore no surprise that Labour have had to make 12 U turns in 18 months. The majority of the team are probably actively disengaged. Anyone in his team who is remotely competent is probably seething at the lack of leadership.

When defending his track record at PMQs -  top of the list of his achievements that he seems to trott our on weekly basis is "Breakfast clubs" (free school meals), ending Junior doctor strikes (ironically now they are Resident Doctors rather than Junior they are back on strike again).  Seriously Breakfast Clubs....I know Starmer is always in another country but surely he must know that things are going wrong at home on serious scale.....and all he has delivered in Breakfast clubs...

So a key quality of leadership is presenting a compelling vision and getting buy in.  A leader without followers is not a leader.

The only thing I can point to as Starmer's leadership vision is presenting himself and the Labour party as serious, trustworthy and stable alternative government.  However this is yet more manifesting.  Unless you take steps to do this, it's not leadership. This was a good strategy when aiming to be elected but they have been in power for 18 months. My report card for being a "serious, trustworthy and stable government" - poor at best.

Nothing in  this "Corporate Mission" shouts Change - it's more stability and being a caretaker government.   That's absolutely not what is needed.

Things were bad under Conservatives and now are worse under Labour so there's absolutely a need for Change. State spending needs to be dramatically curbed. Unfortunately that's not in Labour's DNA.

It's clear we need a leader but sadly Starmer isn't one.