Keir Starmer is the bandage Labour can't rip off for fear of opening old wounds | Rafael Behr

"Keir Starmer has presided over a lot of woes in 18 months, making a young government look old. The premature decrepitude is more advanced, and more disturbing to Labour MPs, because it feels like continuity from the turbulent Tory regime that came before. The policies and personnel are different, but to the casual passing voter the sound of screaming and breaking crockery around Downing Street is familiar as a sign of a political problem family in residence."

"All the more so when it is Peter Mandelson's name being howled in despair, conjuring memories of ministerial misdeeds from a bygone era. Starmer has only been an MP since 2015, but he looks broken under the cumulative weight of a decades-old incumbency. That explains the depths of the prime minister's unpopularity. Even Labour MPs who are infuriated by all the errors of judgment not least the calamitous choice of Mandelson as ambassador to Washington think Starmer is a decent man"

"They understand public disappointment, but are stunned by how venomously it is expressed on the doorstep; the hatred. The problem isn't only that change was promised and is being delivered too slowly. That is Starmer's preferred diagnosis because it suggests he could still turn things around. But he is reviled by too many voters as the archetypal status-quo politician the incarnation of everything people hoped they were disposing of at the last election."

Westminster is characterised by scandals, resignations, rebellions, U-turns and leadership crises that age a regime. Keir Starmer's government has faced numerous woes in its first 18 months, making a young administration appear old and suggesting continuity with the turbulent Tory period that preceded it. The naming of Peter Mandelson rekindles memories of past ministerial misdeeds and intensifies public anger. Many Labour MPs view Starmer as a decent man with civic duty, yet voters express venomous hostility, seeing him as the embodiment of the status quo rather than the agent of promised change.

Read at www.theguardian.com