Polluted politicians?

Keir Starmer’s political honeymoon didn’t survive the summer. His new government started with a gloomy message of ‘buckle up, this is going to hurt’, while floating tax rises to tackle the public finances.

Then it was revealed that he and some of his colleagues received gifts worth large sums of money in the form of clothing and hospitality. They did not break the rules, but neither did they help to restore the trust in politicians that has been seeping away in recent years.

For many onlookers, weary of partisan sniping and the whiff of dishonesty and privilege around those in leadership, politics feels tainted and damaged beyond repair. Many are attracted to the populist (and in my view harmful) narrative that MPs are part of a ‘corrupt elite’ which is ignoring and exploiting the decent British people. And although Labour won a huge majority of seats in July, voter turnout was just 59.7%, the lowest at a general election since 2001.