The Debate: Who can fix Britain?

Wednesday, 20 May 2026.

Craig Davidson is a former Director of Communications for the Scottish Labour Party. Tom Skinner is a former Director of Events and Special Advisor for numerous Conservative governments. Here, they examine the current political state of Britain and discuss where they believe the country goes next, drawing from their front-row seats in modern UK politics.

Q. Why has UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer found himself so unpopular?

CD: Ultimately, he has failed to deliver the core promise on which he won power – that life would feel better and more affordable. The fact he has still been unable to explain any coherent plan to achieve this means faith in him has faded in the country. He initially brought some seriousness and a sense of competence to Number 10 but has failed to handle the inevitable challenges of power. Power reveals, and it has revealed hypocrisy and uncertainty where once people saw principle and steadiness.

TS: He won an election on the promise of competence, but there was no love for him before the election. He was the beneficiary of the Conservative government’s unpopularity. The voters thought they were voting to end the chaos, but a series of missteps, U-turns, damaging policy decisions and, of course, the appointment of Peter Mandelson and the explosive fallout from that, have shown him to be lacking in some of the basic qualities needed to be a modern Prime Minister. Most notably, the ability to articulate a positive vision, and to tell a political story which the country can understand, has been lacking.

Q. How much influence does the news cycle have in 2026?

CD: Politics is still consumed by the churn of the 24-hour news cycle, much of which is forgotten within days. Responding to this can be a distraction and force mistakes. But when the noise fades, people are constantly absorbing signals and forming impressions. The real trick is to influence the media, not be influenced by it. Provided you are prepared and have something to say, the media is still the best way to communicate to large audiences, whether it’s voters, markets or backbenchers. It’s certainly more effective than the endless social media clips of politicians repeating cliches into camera phones.

TS: Total, and it’s totally unhelpful. When I first started working in Government in 2010, it was as social media was really starting to take off. There was 24-hour rolling news, but it was much slower pace. The news cycle used to be a day, then it was an hour. By the time I found myself in Number 10 in 2019, the news cycle was whatever WhatsApp or Twitter said it was, which meant that by the time we’d agreed on a line on a story (which could take some time) it was already well out of date. Governments can not operate at the speed of Twitter, but that’s what politics now demands.

US President Donald Trump manages to get around this by dominating the news himself and setting the agenda, but he’s uniquely positioned to do that. There is no way the UK Government can operate like Trump. You end up with a leader having to choose between communications and the actual business of government. The key is building a strong team, which sticks with a leader, who are competent, trusted and have power delegated to them. It’s been a long time since a British government was in that position.

Q. You have both watched leaders lose their authority. What does that actually look like from inside the building?

CD: Not fun! You always live in hope you can turn it around but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule. When the numbers are against you, whether it be polls or numbers for votes, there are no good options. Every decision is a short-term trade off which underlines your weakness.

People underestimate how personal it becomes. Leaders work in loyal, tight-knit teams who want to protect their boss and their shared reputation. Outside opponents become enemies for their disloyalty and the instinct is to dig in. In the end though, it comes as a relief when it’s over and then you can move on to the fun part – the revenge! This means watching those people who were against you inherit all the problems and then you can carp from the sidelines like they did.

TS: At first it’s slow. I was responsible for PM visits and at first you get fewer MPs asking for you to go to their patch, or do videos for their constituents. It’s harder to recruit decent people into Number 10 and over time that builds up and starts to become active hostility. Ministers start freelancing in interviews and private meetings become more difficult. Then suddenly the dam breaks and almost instantly your authority goes. It transfers to the political party, or leadership challengers, but definitely not the PM in Number 10. Keir Starmer has been in that position for a while now. In office, but waiting for something or someone to end his Premiership. He’s got very little control of when that time will come.

Q. Are leaders punished more for narrative failure than policy failure?

CD: I think they are inseparable. The narrative is the washing line, the policies are the clothes pegs. It’s difficult to get both right. A government can do serious, worthwhile work but if they’re unable to explain it as part of a story, people won’t credit them. Equally, a strong narrative won’t resonate if it jars with people’s lived experience. Successful leaders make policy and narrative reinforce each other.

TS: Voters forgive policies they disagree with if they understand why the leader is doing them. It’s possible to do unpopular things and still be a successful leader and win elections, as long as voters believe you are in control of events and the decisions you are making are part of a plan.

Starmer’s problem is not directly that his policies are wrong. His problem is that nobody, including some of his Cabinet, can explain what story he is trying to tell. If you cannot summarise in a sentence what you are trying to achieve in a way that voters understand, you’re in real trouble from the start and if you can not explain and justify why you’re doing something that isn’t popular, it’s not a surprise that MPs feel under pressure and u-turns follow. Do that too often and all your authority is gone.

Q. Is the UK actually ungovernable, or is it that the people trying to govern it are not equipped for what the job has become?

CD: Economic stagnation, rising debt, ageing population, weak energy resources, emerging security threats from Russia and China, mental health crisis among young people, climate change, technology transformation, an overly bureaucratic state which can’t build anything, skills shortages, a depleted military, Donald Trump – anyone who thinks they are equipped to deal with these problems should probably be disqualified from the job on the grounds of insanity.

TS: I think it’s both. There is a real problem with recruiting enough of the highest quality people into politics. On the face of it, it’s quite thankless. The best people will have to take big pay cuts, many from boardrooms, and as a backbench MP you have no power at all, unlike if you’re running a company. Getting things done can take ages, you get abused on social media relentlessly, you can’t have a day off without being criticised and being successful isn’t rewarded. Often, it’s actually punished. So the conditions are not optimal for recruiting the best people and the result is that the political class has got narrower.

Additionally, as Craig says, the country has structural problems and geopolitical tensions that any government would struggle with. That combination is very challenging indeed.

Q: Have we reached the stage where two years has become the lifecycle of a UK Prime Minister? Is that the new normal?

CD: I genuinely don’t think Keir Starmer’s successor, whether it’s Angela Rayner, Andy Burnham or Wes Streeting, will get two years. Maybe Keir will get a third year once Labour has cycled through those three like the Tories did.

TS: I think we have and I think it is. Parliament is full of people who want to be, and think, they could be Prime Minister. Coupled with that, we have a political system that’s designed to break its leaders. We don’t have long enough to discuss it here, but I wrote a longer article about this last February. CLICK HERE to read it.

Q: What are your predictions as to how this will all pan out?

CD: It now seems inevitable Keir Starmer will be replaced by the time of the party conferences in autumn and the new leader may even get a popularity bump. But they will face the same bad options as this government, only with less time to fix it and no mandate from the electorate to do anything radically different.

The poverty of alternatives – Crypto Nigel, Zack “I don’t vote or pay taxes’ Polanski and an unrepentant Tory party means Labour might even limp into a second term, propped up by the Lib Dems and the nationalists. Either way, we face another period of instability.

TS: In February I put a bet on Ed Miliband becoming the next Prime Minister, but I now think it might be Angela Rayner who will take it. Starmer will survive until Labour’s conference, unless he decides to go earlier in order to sink Andy Burnham’s leadership ambitions by leaving before he has a chance to become an MP at the Makerfield by-election. We shouldn’t underestimate the pressure within Labour to have their first female leader, so I think Rayner is underpriced. If, however, she becomes Prime Minister, the internal dynamics within Labour might break their party. Whoever wins, I have a feeling there will be another leadership election before we get a General Election.

Q: For Red Flag clients, what advice would you give for navigating the chaos?

CD: The current political context reinforces a fact true for years – policy is not made in a rational, linear way. The outcome you want or expect is not inevitable just because the evidence supports it. Politics is shaped by pressure, narrative, personalities, news cycles and competing interests. I always think of a famous line by H.L. Mencken: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” Businesses and organisations are at the mercy of politicians who easily fall for these types of solutions.

Do not assume good arguments speak for themselves. If a policy outcome matters, you need to participate in the conversation early, consistently and strategically. Otherwise, decisions taken in political chaos can have very real commercial consequences. You can’t afford to sit it out.

TS: Obviously, deepen their partnerships with Red Flag first! But in addition to that, I think companies need to get into the mindset that they don’t wait for things to settle down – because they won’t. Get used to volatility, if you want policy to change, create noise, recruit allies to make your case and persuade voters that what you’re saying is right. If you can use the instability to build political pressure and engage right across the political spectrum you’ll be well placed to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the chaos.

Got an issue only Red Flag can solve? Get in touch with Tom, Craig or another Red Flag London expert at uk@redflag.global