They were not tears shed over his biggest political failure, nor over the cold support given by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, nor over the rumors of his dismissal - or forced resignation - that had taken over London. When British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves, looked at Starmer on Tuesday with a distressed face and red, swollen eyes in the House of Commons, it was "for a personal matter and I won't go into that." Those were her words yesterday, in front of the cameras. "It was clear she was upset, and everyone could see it," Reeves admitted. "But on Wednesdays at noon, my job as Finance Minister is to stand by the Prime Minister to support the Government," she concluded.
Reeves thus shifted from a sense of responsibility, sprinkled with a subtle yet effective plea for respect for her private life, to an image that had added an emotional component to Starmer's government's biggest failure, which exactly one year ago today won the elections with a prodigious mathematical feat owed entirely to the UK's majoritarian electoral system: with practically the same number of votes as in the previous elections in 2019, the Labour Party secured the largest electoral majority seen in the British Isles in 22 years.
The Labour Party is currently both the Government and the opposition in the Westminster Parliament. This is what sparked controversy regarding Reeves' tears - regardless of whether they were political or personal. It all started when on Tuesday the left wing of the party torpedoed the Government's plan to tighten the criteria for accessing the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a disability benefit received by 3.7 million people in England and Wales alone, the two nations in the UK directly and immediately affected by the reform. The PIP program epitomizes for many what an excessive Welfare State entails. Its benefits are distributed regardless of the recipients' income, with as much as 10% of the entire active population in Wales and England receiving it.
The failure of the PIP encapsulates the ambitions and challenges of Starmer's Government. On one hand, there is his political agenda. The Prime Minister is a centrist Labourite - a social democrat - who aims to reform the Welfare State, but faces a left-wing faction within his party that still celebrates the UK's exit from the European Union as a triumph of anti-capitalism.
Taming this faction would be possible if Starmer possessed the charisma and maneuvering ability of Tony Blair, but the former is not among the current Prime Minister's strengths. As for maneuvering ability, Starmer has it. However, for his critics, it is more of a conspiratorial nature, lacking scruples, arrogance, a desire for centralization of power, and absolute indifference towards others, whether they are collaborators or the electorate.
This is how Starmer's icy "thank you" to Reeves for her work on the failed PIP reform was interpreted by many as the Prime Minister's first step towards getting rid of his reformist Finance Minister, prompting Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon to stage unity between the two politicians and deny any kind of discord, primarily for the reassurance of the financial markets, which prefer a technocratic center-left Labour Government over a left-wing one. However, the underlying issues remain. Starmer might have been able to push through the reform if he had been more accommodating to the left. And his popularity might have improved if his reactions were somewhat more amiable than the terse "noted" response he gave when reacting to the loss of a Labour seat by just six votes to the far-right and 'Eurosceptic' Reform Party last May.
Being a technocrat is excellent for implementing an adjustment, but not for convincing the public or the party to 'buy into' it. Nevertheless, the UK needs the adjustment. Its fiscal situation is not as dire as France's, but far from good. The British public debt still pays the infamous 'moron premium', a term coined by Dario Perkins of the analysis firm Global Data to refer to the catastrophic economic management of the conservative - and now 'Trumpist' - Liz Truss.
Starmer's technocratic nature has served him well on the international stage, where he has positioned the UK favorably between the US and the EU, and has also secured trade agreements with both countries and India. The issue is that these successes do not translate into winning elections.
The Prime Minister's main advantage, one year after the elections, remains the same as on July 4, 2024: the opposition. Starmer is unpopular. But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is also unpopular. Only 'ultra' leader Nigel Farage has slightly more public support. However, according to polls, in a head-to-head with the Prime Minister, the latter would win. In any case, it is not a very exciting scenario for the British. The fact that only 36% of voters have a favorable view of the Prime Minister, after just one year in office, yet he would be the favorite to win an election if it were held today, says more about his rivals than about him.