ANDREW NEIL: Starmer's first 100 days have been unprecedented shambles

Many new governments undergo a baptism by fire but none in modern memory has emerged as badly burned as Keir Starmer's.

He has presided over an unprecedented shambles, which is why you'll hear no sound of celebration emanating from 10 Downing Street today as Labour reaches its 100th day in power.

Wailing and gnashing of teeth, perhaps. But definitely no tinkling of champagne glasses. It takes a special kind of political nous to make the signature policy of your first days in power the abolition of the winter fuel allowance for most old folks.

To then compound that with a defence of the PM and his wife taking tens of thousands of pounds of gifts from a Labour Lord Moneybags elevates it to genius.

If you still didn't get how unfair it all was, Labour reinforced the message by stuffing the mouths of public sector unions with gold. The government had told us it simply couldn't afford a universal winter fuel allowance, given the fiscal mess the Tories had supposedly left behind. But somehow it managed to find the extra dosh to fund bumper pay rises for its friends (and paymasters) in the unions.

Amid a litany of unforced errors these past 100 days, the juxtaposition of these three events really cut through the Westminster Bubble and into national consciousness, even in the dog days of August. An image took root in the public mind of pensioners shivering in the cold this winter while already well-paid train drivers got even more.

Meanwhile, Starmer strutted around in expensive suits and specs somebody else had bought for him, elegant wife by his side in equally pricey freebie frocks, no doubt on their way to a Taylor Swift concert or a plush private box at Arsenal's stadium.

It was not, I think it can be safely said, a good look. The man who'd been propelled to power in an historic landslide on July 4 had become, in a mere 100 days, the most unpopular political leader in the House of Commons.

A poll this week showed Starmer's personal ratings have plummeted. His net favourability rating (those who rate him favourably minus those who don't) is now -20, worse than Rishi Sunak (-16), who Starmer had thumped only three short months ago and was already yesterday's man.

And it's much worse than Nigel Farage (-8), which is particularly embarrassing since Labour despises him, and much, much worse than Lib Dem leader Ed Davey (-4), who's probably the least unpopular because his party is powerless to do anything, good or bad.

Starmer's party is rating no better than he is. Labour has crashed in the polls. Almost 50 per cent of those who voted Labour say they're already 'disappointed'. The day before the General Election it had an 18-point lead in the opinion polls. Now it is nip and tuck with the Conservatives, which is quite an achievement since the Tories are leaderless and barely function as an effective opposition.

If they did, Labour would probably be 10 points behind.

To get the measure of just what a falling off there has been, remember that Tony Blair's first government – also elected on a landslide (in 1997) – did not lose its lead over the Tories for more than three years, when the oil tanker drivers' strike of September 2000 threatened to bring the country to a halt. 

The moment it was over, Labour's lead returned and Blair went on to win the 2001 election by another landslide.

For Starmer, such a scenario already looks a far-fetched, probably impossible dream.

Margaret Thatcher had more of a rocky start when she was first elected in 1979 – especially when her government's first Budget doubled VAT – but nothing like the gaffe-prone current lot.

Even the liberal Washington Post conceded she got off to an impressive start: 'In a remarkably active first 100 days as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher has surprised Britain and attracted worldwide attention with the boldness of her leadership.'

Nobody is writing that about Starmer, not even in media outlets sympathetic to him. The news website LabourList, which usually cheerleads for the Labour leader, this week carried an article which describes the first 100 days as 'disappointing', bemoans the fact that Labour in power 'has never really been on the front foot and in control of events' and describes its early days as 'an opportunity wasted'.

The concept of the 'first 100 days' was originally devised by Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected US President for the first time in 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression.

He used it to show he'd hit the ground running, with 15 significant bills pushed through Congress in 100 days to alleviate hardship and create his New Deal. Starmer has nothing like that to show from his first 100 days. 

Indeed, far from giving the government an air of purpose and direction, he and his senior ministers have more often given the impression they don't have clue what they're doing, that too often they are simply out of their depth.

Only this week, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh sparked a fresh crisis when she denounced P&O Ferries as a 'rogue operator'.

The company's parent company, DP World, the Dubai-based ports and logistics company, promptly cancelled plans to announce a £1billion investment in its London Gateway container port and pulled out of Starmer's flagship investment summit to be held in London next week.

When they arrived in Numbers 10 and 11, Starmer and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, were quick to emphasise the Tories' terrible economic legacy – the worst in 70 years they falsely claimed – to justify the massive tax rises coming in the October 30 Budget. Fair enough. All incoming governments blame their predecessors for early unpopular decisions.

But Starmer and Reeves, through a mixture of inexperience and naivety, made such a fetish of how dire things were that they started to scare people off. Consumer confidence tumbled.

Instead of spending in the shops, people tightened their belts in anticipation of hard times to come. Business started to wonder if it was worth investing in a country whose condition even its leaders admitted was grim.

The rich started to head for the door before higher taxes got a hold of them, with more millionaires now fleeing Britain than any other country bar China, taking a large chunk of our tax base with them.

And we've not even had Labour's first Budget yet!

It was a classic beginner's guide to how to shoot yourself in the foot – if not the temple. It has undermined the reputation of Reeves as well as that of her boss.

Before the election, business and finance saw her through rose-tinted spectacles. They were fed up with the Tories and she seemed a cut above the rest of the shadow cabinet.

In reality, she looked better than she was only because most of her shadow cabinet colleagues were so unimpressive. Business is not so enamoured of her now.

She is preparing to introduce massive tax rises, perhaps totalling as much as £25 billion, on October 30, after fighting an election insisting Labour's plans were 'fully costed' and required no extra tax rises, bar the few minor ones Labour had already announced.

These – the ones we knew about – are already beginning to unravel. VAT on school fees might have to be postponed. The tougher regime for non-doms might actually cost the Treasury money if many of them simply up sticks and depart. The same could be true for the higher taxes it wants on private equity.

Plans to cut tax relief on pension contributions have floundered because too many of Labour's fat-cat supporters in the public sector would be hurt.

There are reports that Reeves is scrambling frantically to make her sums work in time for her first Budget. She will do so in time-honoured Labour fashion: by taxing more and borrowing more.

But the debt markets are already flashing her a warning: by all means borrow a bit more if you want, but it will cost you more.

The British government is already having to pay two percentage points more than the German government to borrow over ten years. That gap will rise the more Reeves decides to borrow, even for public investment.

Reeves can tinker with the fiscal rules to give her a bit more headroom to borrow and spend, which is what Labour governments exist to do. But the more she borrows the more interest rates and mortgages will stay high or even increase. It's hard to see how that gels with her administration's growth agenda.

The government is committed to making Britain the fastest growing economy in the G7 group of rich nations. So it is perverse, bizarre even, to have spent its first 100 days undermining growth.

Not just with its relentless talking down of the country, but with its myriad tax threats to investors and entrepreneurs.

It is pointless to tout growth then turn on the very people you need to deliver it.

Almost everything Labour has done in its first 100 days is perversely anti-growth. Its proposed Fair Work Agency, tasked with implementing 28 new regulations designed to enhance workers' rights (and with the power to fine businesses who do not comply), will merely inhibit small businesses from hiring.

Its obsession with net zero, pioneered by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who has become something of a green zealot, might create a few thousand more green jobs but only at the cost of destroying many, many thousands more existing jobs in oil and gas – and cutting off further investment in the North Sea. 

It's so called National Wealth Fund is no such thing. Sovereign wealth funds accumulate national surpluses to save and invest in future prosperity. Labour's will borrow all its money and spend it on projects business regards as too risky. So you can say goodbye to most of its £7 billion budget.

State-owned GB Energy will also have around £7 billion to play with. We still have little idea what it plans to do with it. The only growth it and the Fund are likely to generate will be to the national debt. The number of illegal immigrants coming across the Channel is also growing. Last Saturday almost 1,000 came across in one day – a record.

So far this year, 27,000 have made it across from northern France, more than by this time last year. And over 40 have tragically died in the attempt, four times more than the whole of last year.

Labour might have been right to ditch the Tories' Rwanda scheme but, after 100 days in power, it has come up with nothing convincing to replace it.

The new government's inexperience has also cast a shadow over foreign policy, which is perhaps not surprising with David Lammy as foreign secretary.

Starmer said Britain stood four-square with Israel after Iran's ballistic missile attack almost two weeks ago, forgetting to mention that Britain has inflicted a partial arms embargo on Israel.

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ANDREW NEIL: Freebiegate has shown Starmer to be clunky, even amateur

He and Lammy continue to urge a ceasefire on Jerusalem, with little idea what that really means or what it would lead to. If we'd been attacked by 180 ballistic missiles, I doubt we'd listen to those urging a ceasefire on us. Nobody in Israel is listening to Starmer.

The unforced errors continue. The Chagos Islands have been given to Mauritius, even though there was no case in law or merit. Even the islanders' interests were ignored. Lamentable Lammy just handed them over to look good at the court of international opinion. No wonder the Falklands and Gibraltar now worry aloud about their future.

It's been remarked that perhaps Starmer is just not very good at politics, that – as a career lawyer – he is not steeped or schooled in political ways. There's some truth in this. It would explain the mess over winter fuel payments, the inability to close down Freebiegate and the overdoing of the 'Talk Britain down' strategy.

But it was always thought Starmer was, if not politically astute, then at least competent. After the first 100 days, nobody can be sure of that any more.

He has presided over a dysfunctional operation at 10 Downing Street which has contributed to his miserable start.

But it was his creation, and for too long he remained in denial that it was a mess.

He was asked if Sue Gray, his chief of staff, had become such a divisive figure that she was impeding the smooth functioning of government. Starmer dismissed that outright as 'nonsense'.

A few weeks later she was gone – to a non-job.

Barely 100 days in power and Starmer was having to reconfigure the machinery of government closest to him. Nobody is sure if it will be an improvement.

Political skills can be honed by time and experience. But either you have competence or you don't.

After a dismal 100 days there are already calls for Starmer to give his government a wider reboot. The Budget will hardly do it — it's likely to make the government even more unpopular.

It's early days. A proper Opposition could still be some way off, there's plenty of time to get the show back on the road.

But if you're incompetent as well as a political novice with the rhetorical skills of a satnav, then the road back will be long and hard — and you might never make it.