Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate

Inside Politics UK politicsAdd to myFTGet instant alerts for this topicManage your delivery channels hereRemove from myFTUnpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fateNigel Farage and Zack Polanski have both had good years thanks to disastrous strategy from the two main partiesSir Keir Starmer has made Labour much less popular and caused the party to lose ground with progressive voters © TOLGA AKMEN/EPA/ShutterstockUnpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on x (opens in a new window)Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on facebook (opens in a new window)Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on linkedin (opens in a new window)Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on x (opens in a new window)Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on facebook (opens in a new window)Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on linkedin (opens in a new window)Unpopular Labour is running out of opportunities to change its fate on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save Stephen BushPublishedDecember 19 2025Jump to comments sectionPrint this pageThis article is an on-site version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. If you’re not a subscriber, you can still receive the newsletter free for 30 daysGood morning. ‘Tis the newsletter before Christmas. And as parliament is in recess, experience tells me that quite a few mice will be stirring, returning to lay claim to their territory now that the MPs have gone. For our last newsletter before Christmas, below are some thoughts on the state of the parties. Inside Politics is edited by Harvey Nriapia today. Follow Stephen on Bluesky and X. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.comHard slogHere is how the state of the parties looked at the start and end of this year, per YouGov.Now, as long-term readers will be asking: “Stephen, wait a second, don’t you always go on about how you prefer to use Ipsos because it is the oldest UK pollster and therefore has longer datasets?” The answer is yes, but Ipsos doesn’t publish voting-intention numbers as regularly. So we can’t easily do a start- and end-of-year comparison. But we can look at Ipsos’ monthly series on party favourability. The pollster doesn’t ask who people will vote for. Rather it measures the parties based on favourability. Here are the scores on the door in January:And here’s where they were in December:Note how the relative positions of the Labour and Conservative parties have changed a lot when it comes to voting intention since the start of the year. But in terms of general favourability, the Conservatives’ position hasn’t really changed — while Labour’s has got quite a lot worse. This should alarm both parties, albeit for different reasons. We are now, I think it is pretty clear to say, in an era when winning elections requires getting your “bloc” to vote for you, but also making that bloc as electorally efficient as possible. Almost all the shifts in the elections of 2017, 2019 and 2024 were “in-bloc” transfers. That is, within a mostly Leave-voting bloc for the parties of the right and a mostly Remain-voting bloc for the parties of the left and centre. (These are simplifications, but they will serve for today.) A lot of 2019 Lib Dem voters backed Labour in 2024 and vice versa. But it would be a misread to see that as just the progressive bloc getting more efficient. Most 2019 Lib Dem voters did not wake up the morning after the December 2019 election and say: “Oh no, how dreadful! Jeremy Corbyn is not prime minister”. Many of those who voted Lib Dem in 2019 and switched to Labour in 2024 did so knowing full well that they were facilitating Boris Johnson’s victory. And equally, in 2024, Conservative 2019 voters who backed Reform UK did not wake up and go: “Oh dear, I have served as the handmaid to a Labour landslide by mistake!” They did so knowing full well what the consequences would be, because almost everyone in the UK understands how the electoral system works. Kemi Badenoch’s big problem isn’t that she has made the Tory party more unpopular — indeed, its underlying position has changed very little over the past year. The problem is that she has ceded the role of rightwing party that could replace the government to Reform. Unless she does something drastic, that will only become more entrenched next year. The obvious thing she needs to do is start to have a critique of Nigel Farage’s party that strikes a chord with most voters and stands up to scrutiny. Calling Reform a “leftwing party” while echoing its lines on immigration and identity, as she has done for much of the past year, has not worked. And it will not start working in 2026. What should worry Keir Starmer is that he has made Labour much less popular and lost ground with the progressive bloc. Strikingly, in the polls Labour has lost ground to the Greens, while in actual council elections up and down England, it is mostly losing to the Lib Dems. In Wales, polling and actual elections point in the same direction: a shift of voters, en bloc, from Welsh Labour to Plaid Cymru. (I have some theories on what is really occurring in England. But I first want to travel the country a bit more, kicking the tyres for a bit, before writing about them.) Now, being unpopular is what the first few years of a parliament are for. You do big, difficult things that pay off at the end of the term so you can hold easy giveaway budgets and preside over a stronger economy and public realm as you get into the election.If Labour ministers lost ground because they had done things the left dislikes but that could pay off — such as easing some regulatory burdens or taxes put on British banks after the financial crisis, scrapping the triple lock, abolishing the very sharp cliff-edge in our tax system at £100,000 or cutting working-age benefits significantly — they might have reason for optimism. (I’m not saying I think all of these are a good idea. Some are great, some disastrous. My point is that they are all things that would, in the short term, cause Labour pain on the left.)If the public felt the government’s tax raising would prevent more difficult budgets and repair both the public finances and the public realm, again, Labour ministers might have reason for optimism. But frankly, when you look at Labour’s record this year, it is hard to see what the party has done that will prevent its first year of hard slog from giving way to a second, third, fourth and fifth year of the same. Both Starmer and Badenoch have had disastrous years, while Farage and the Green party leader in England and Wales, Zack Polanski, have had good ones. The big difference is that Badenoch clearly does not have the inclination to change her fate, while Starmer is running out of opportunities to change his.Now try thisRight, that’s it from me. We are going away for a week in the countryside. Music-wise I am really looking forward to listening to Soweto Kinch’s Christmas-themed Round Midnight on Radio 3, as well as what has become a real highlight of the Christmas calendar for us, Bill Nighy’s guest slot on Radio 6 Music. Nighy really is a terrific DJ in addition to being a brilliant actor. Otherwise, here is what I think is the cream of the crop, Christmas music-wise:1) Jazz: nothing comes close to Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite.2) Classical: I really love the original Nutcracker (lovely recording by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic here). But I think the best bit of classical Christmas music is Handel’s The Messiah (great version by the LSO and Sir Colin Davis here). I think technically only the first half is Christmas music and presumably the rest is for Easter. But I am not Christian so I am not overly bothered by that. I listen to all of it. 3) Rap: Run-DMC’s Christmas in Hollis.4) Bob Dylan (yes, he is a genre): Christmas in the Heart.

Must Be Santa is the standout track. 5) Folk punk: The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. Let me know yours by hitting reply.However you spend it, and whatever you listen to, have a wonderful break! We’ll be back on December 29.Top stories todayDemographic challenges | Over-50s should be incentivised to stay in work for longer, a House of Lords committee has said, warning that the consequences of an ageing society are not receiving enough attention.Sanctioned | The UK has imposed sanctions on former Conservative party donor and oil trader Murtaza Lakhani for alleged involvement in Russia’s energy sector, which he described as “unfounded, unfair and politically motivated”.Ground to a halt | Plans to construct a £2.5bn tram network in West Yorkshire have been delayed by about three years, pushing the project back into the late 2030s.Recommended newsletters for youThe Week Ahead — Start every week with a preview of what’s on the agenda. Sign up hereNewswrap — Our business and economics round-up. Sign up hereReuse this content (opens in new window) CommentsJump to comments sectionPromoted Content Follow the topics in this article UK politics Add to myFT Reform UK Add to myFT Labour party UK Add to myFT Conservative party UK Add to myFT Inside Politics Add to myFT Comments