Britain’s visceral dislike of Keir Starmer illuminates a problem for his successor | Samuel Earle

There are many good reasons to not like the prime minister. But ours is an age in which hatred is a remarkably popular currency – leaders need a strategy for countering it

It might be that Keir Starmer, not known for his rhetorical skills, expresses himself most clearly through his furrowed brow. It has a way of telling the public that none of this is easy and that difficult decisions must be made. It says that although Starmer wishes it were otherwise, things will get worse before they get better, if they do indeed get better; that there are no good options, only difficult decisions. The local and regional elections on Friday meted out another round of pain for Starmer, and his furrowed brow was once again doing a lot of the talking. “The results are tough, they are very tough,” he said. “That hurts, and it should hurt, and I take responsibility.”

Starmer’s furrowed brow courts pity and patience – but voters are in no mood to feel sorry for their prime minister. Instead, if the public’s feelings towards Starmer could be reduced to a single emotion, it would probably be hatred, resentment or scorn. Even those who don’t like Starmer can be surprised at the sheer intensity and spread of the animosity towards him. “[It] is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced,” John McDonnell said on LBC recently. On Newsnight on Wednesday, the Daily Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey said that “visceral dislike” of Starmer was the local elections’ defining theme – and the Labour peer Thangam Debbonaire conceded that “I’ve certainly picked that up on the doorstep, yes.”

Samuel Earle is the author of Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party