Keir Starmer risks becoming little more than “continuity Rishi Sunak” because of his lack of vision and ambition, Ed Davey has said in a damning assessment of the prime minister’s first year in power.
The Liberal Democrats leader, whose party recorded its best result in a century at the last general election, said believed Starmer was a decent and principled man, but that it was unclear what he stood for.
“You can see Starmer almost sleep-walking to becoming continuity Rishi Sunak,” Davey told the Guardian in an interview marking 12 months since the 2024 election, in which the Lib Dems took 72 seats.
“It’s as if there’s no ambition anywhere. There’s no ambition on Europe to get growth. The 10-year NHS plan failed to mention social care and failed to mention family carers. It could turn out to be the most expensive sticking plaster in history.
“We’ve seen the chaos on welfare. Even on defence, they’re not taking the steps we need and with the foreign agenda where we’re supposed to be doing so well, I don’t think their position on Donald Trump has yielded the sorts of deep results that we need.
“It’s almost as if, like Sunak, a tweak here, a tweak there is all he thinks needs to be done.”
The Liberal Democrats leader, Ed Davey. Photograph: House of Commons/AFP/Getty Images
Davey, who has talked about caring for his son, who is disabled, and for his mother when she was ill, praised Starmer for discussing in a recent interview how he had personally sorted through the possessions of his brother, Nick, after he died late last year.
“I think it’s important that people do hear that, because with the distrust in politics and politicians, it’s important people do see that politicians value things like family,” Davey said.
“But as prime minister, there needs to be something that people can get behind. He needs people to understand where we’re going. And I don’t think anyone, even his own party, have a real feel for where he’s going.”
In comparison not just with Labour, but also the Conservatives and Reform UK, Davey’s party has enjoyed a relatively undramatic year since the election, winning more seats in May’s local elections and pushing ahead with a stance of “constructive opposition” to the government.
The Lib Dems are generally scoring only a few points below the 12.2% support they received in the general election in national polling, but while they have on a couple of occasions scored above the Tories, Reform are far ahead in first place.
Davey, however, argued that local byelection results, such as one on Thursday in which the party took a seat on Durham county council from Reform, showed the extent of the Lib Dems’ appeal, and the limitations of national polling.
“In parts of the country where we haven’t been doing so well we’re really coming back, and I can see a pathway for us doing something very special in the next election. I think we will surprise people again,” he said.
“During the last parliament, if I’d I said ‘look, we’re going to win 72 seats,’ I think they would have questioned my objectivity and rationality. But we knew what we were doing.”
On the rise of Reform, Davey argued that one factor was the disproportionate coverage given by the BBC to Nigel Farage and his party, something he said was “just completely disproportionate”.
“I come to this debate as essentially someone who supports the BBC,” he said. “But I fear that they’re allowing themselves to be seen, by some at least, as an organ of Reform. They seem to bend over backwards to please Nigel Farage. They’re almost like a mouthpiece for Nigel Farage, he’s on so much, and this is a guy who wants to destroy them.”