Suzanne Harrington: Starmer brings glimmers of hope, but time will tell

I've seen nine prime ministers while living in Britain, Starmer is the tenth to move into Number 10

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer poses outside of Parliament Buildings, the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly, in Stormont, east of Belfast, on July 8, 2024. Pic: Liam McBurney/AFP

I’ve been an Irish citizen resident in Britain for nine prime ministers now. 

I caught the last three years of Thatcher, seven years of Major, a decade of Blair, seven of Brown, six of Cameron, three of May, three of Johnson (you can see the downward trajectory here) five minutes of Truss, during which time my mortgage repayments jumped from £800 (€945) a month to £1,800 (€2,130) a month, so that to avoid losing my house I had to rent out all the rooms and move into the garden cabin (cheers, Liz); then two years of Sunak the hedge fund manager involved with the 2008 financial crash. 

Starmer is number 10 to move into Number 10. He brings a muted feeling of relief, perhaps even glimmers of hope.

Mostly though, it just feels like collective post-traumatic stress disorder. 

These last few years of Tory rule have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced in almost four decades of living here. It’s been like a spiralling cheese dream, from which you cannot wake. 

The crushing of ordinary people, the asset stripping, the disregard for everything from the Good Friday Agreement to the Human Rights Act to the international right to claim asylum. 

The scapegoating of the most vulnerable and powerless. The culture wars manufactured to distract. The American idea that poverty is somehow your own fault. 

The de-funding of schools, hospitals, emergency services.

The doublespeak, incompetence, cronyism, the relentless gaslighting. The lies and hypocrisy, the stirring and exploitation of base hatreds. The arrogance and xenophobia. 

The partying when the rest of us couldn’t attend funerals of loved ones during covid. 

And of course the biggest balls-up of all: Brexit. That unleashed a Pandora’s box of poisoned populism, allowing slithering opportunists to gain actual political power. 

Even the ones who voted for it now know what a catastrophic cock-up it’s been, but apparently there’s no going back. Keir Starmer is just a man in a suit, not a magician.

CATASTROPHIC IMPACT

This isn’t about conflicting ideology: 14 years of Tory ‘governing’ has had a catastrophic impact on actual day-to-day lives. 

I’m living in my garden seomra because of Tory financial incompetence, and I’m one of the lucky ones. I had a seomra to move into, a house to rent out. 

In 2009, a year before the Tories came to power, there were fewer than 26,000 people using foodbanks.

Last year, this number was almost three million, including nurses, teachers and other public workers in one of the world’s richest economies. 

Child poverty in working households has increased 44% between 2010 and 2023. The UK is the ninth most unequal of 38 OECD countries. 

There’s shit in the rivers, and people are literally going to bed hungry. Where are we, 1850?

I’m not a massive fan of the new guy. I dislike how he purged the left (Oh, Jeremy Corbyn), and has been rubbish on Gaza. 

But compared to the con artists, carpet baggers and outright fascists just voted out, he brings hope, perhaps even a sense of fairness and decency. Time will tell. 

Meanwhile, the foodbanks continue working overtime.