Politics- Analysis

Will Keir Starmer chart history for Labour and the UK? Nearly half a century has passed since 'old' Labour last won a general election under the leadership of its dexterous leader, Harold Wilson. Ever since then, only the Tories or 'new' Labour branded in the image of Tony Blair have had success at the ballot box. Ever since the great economic meltdown occurred during Liz Truss' brief watch at the top, the polls have swung firmly in favour of Labour. However, there is doubt whether this lead will be consolidated or will evaporate once the election season commences. Starmer lacks the popularity which Blair, Wilson and Clement Attlee (the only leaders to lead Labour to victory) had enjoyed during their tenure as the Leader of the Opposition, in the leadup to an election. Starmer is considerably less charismatic than Wilson and Blair and does not possess any ministerial experience, unlike Attlee and Wilson. Furthermore, Starmer has had to rebuild Labour, with the party...

The 1951 UK General Election stands out to be one of the most unfortunate ones in its history. The incumbent Labour Party led by Prime Minister Clement Attlee was forced to relinquish office in favour of the Conservative Party led by Leader of the Opposition and war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The irony being that Labour was ousted from office despite securing 48.8% of the votes compared to the 48% secured by the Tories. This is contrary to the general perception propagated by the media that the Labour government had suffered a loss in credibility due to austerity and rationing measures in addition to the deflation crisis of 1947. The only caveat to this was that Conservatives clawed back lost support such that they were neck-to-neck in the opinion polls leading upto the general election. In the 1950 general election, the Labour party lost over 70 seats to the Conservatives, despite its vote share just suffering a marginal decline from 47 to 46%. It was that the vote share...