Tag: Keir Starmer

Want to stand out? Stop banging on about what you do

What's your story?

This post first appeared in the Distinctive Dispatch on 4 September, which we publish on Substack. You can sign up for future editions here or on the box to the right of this post.

Stop talking about what you do

Who are we? What do we stand for? Why does it matter?

If you asked people working for the same organisation these questions, it’s quite likely that they’ll give different answers.

Maybe they’ll talk about what they do, because this sits within their scope of reference. “We build houses” is technically accurate.

But how is that descriptor any different from the thousands of other companies in the UK that do the same thing?

“We deliver training,” is also fine as far as it goes.

But why should anyone care that you provide the same solution – because it’s always a ‘solution’ – as every other training provider?

There is a problem with talking about what you do and stopping there. It neglects the story that makes you who you are.

Set against a growing sense that everthing sounds the same, I can’t recall a time when your story has mattered more.

Organisations can bring people along on the journey by clearly outlining the place they started from, the things they’d like to achieve and where they’d like to end up.

When your story works, it builds connections and earns trust. That’s how sustainable growth happens.

Don’t take my word for it though: look at how businesses are rehiring humans to help their stories stand out from the sea of slop lapping at our ankles.

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With Starmer finished, we need a proper conversation about what ‘change’ looks like

Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street

It’s cruel to call it another U-turn. But growing speculation about Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation, days after insisting he wouldn’t walk away from Number 10, feels fitting.

Last week, the Prime Minister pledged to fight any challenger to his role. Steadfast, if weary, interviews like the one below pointed to progress on growth and NHS waiting lists. This progress doesn’t seem to cut through to the wider public though.

Andy Burnham’s resounding win in the Makerfield by-election changed the tone, gradually then suddenly.

Talk of fighting on is fading, with ministers saying yesterday that the Prime Minister is reflecting on his position. Today, in the face of mounting pressure and fighting back tears, he resigned. *

So here we are, less than two years after storming into office, facing the prospect of a SEVENTH Prime Minister in a decade. His promise to businesses in Bristol to end the psychodrama that defined politics over that period feels like a speck in the distance.

It’s desperately sad that it’s come to this. And it highlights to me a collective madness that passes for public discourse about politics in this country, fuelled largely by bad actors.

‘I wish him well,’ said Donald Trump casually overlooking the fact that net migration into the UK is falling under Labour.

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There’s still time for Labour, if it matches promises with action

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves chat with Gordon Brown as he is appointed as Special Envoy on Global Finance and Cooperation at 10 Downing Street.

“In the first two years or so of government, we were right to level with the public about the challenges that we faced as a country, the legacy we inherited, the international situation, but what we didn’t do was convince them about the future and how things can be better.

“We need to do that, and to be really clear… about not going back to the status quo.”

Keir Starmer speaking to The Observer at the weekend.

The predictions proved correct. The local and devolved elections were as painful for Labour as the response was inevitable.

Ministers speak on the media rounds of the need to reflect and listen to voters. Some MPs, alarmed by the scale of the defeat, call for Keir Starmer to go. The PM himself says he’s not going anywhere.

And strikingly, he spoke on Friday of his determination to break with the status quo ‘once and for all’. Action is needed and act he did. By bringing Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman back into government the next day.

I have huge admiration for Brown and Harman. But their return masterfully sums up how the public sees the PM, pledging to break with the past one day and inviting a former PM back into the fold the next.

The media lapped it up, providing relief in a relentless news cycle. But talking about the election results as a big moment – or a ‘seismic earthquake’ as Reform weirdly did – misses the bigger truth which has screamed back at us for years.

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Holed below the waterline: why Starmer needs a vision for the country  

Sir Keir Starmer in a submarine

Two weeks before the next elections, headlines spell big trouble for Labour.

Candidates contest more than 5,000 seats across 136 councils and devolved governments in England, Scotland, and Wales a week on Thursday (7 May).

Sensible money points to a drubbing for a Labour Party led by a deeply unpopular Prime Minister facing calls to resign over the Mandelson crisis.

According to this projection, Reform stands to gain the most from Labour and Conservative losses.

Look at those numbers again for a second. Labour could lose more than ONE THOUSAND council seats in England. Reform could rise from nowhere to gain more than 1,200, councillors with Greens and Lib Dems also squeezing the Labour vote.

And, unthinkably until quite recently, Labour could also lose the Senedd to either Reform or Plaid Cymru.

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McSweeney’s resignation statement eases the heat, but spin culture holds on 

Number 10 Downing Street

After days of pressure on the government, Morgan McSweeney’s exit as Number 10’s chief of staff felt inevitable.

As resignation statements go, it made a fair attempt to own his part in a scandal that could still engulf his boss.

It admits his role in advising the Prime Minister to appoint Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador, acknowledges the damage caused, and owns the failure.

It stands up well against a political culture that too often denies responsibility at all costs, even when the evidence screams otherwise.

Other parts of the statement – included here and in full below – landed less well though.

Statement on Morgan McSweeney's resignation which is also available online here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c74wd01egvyt
Statement from BBC online https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c74wd01egvyt
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