Sir Keir Starmer’s team hopes diplomatic lifting will pay off – but back home domestic agenda is in trouble

The prime minister marked the 1,000th day of the war in Ukraine tending to global affairs at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Over the two days of our trip to Brazil, the PM wanted to talk about “doubling down” on support for Ukraine, opening a “serious and pragmatic” dialogue with President Xi Jinping of China and the re-starting of stalled trade talks with India.

All the while, back home his domestic agenda is in trouble.

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Take growth figures: In the first three months of his premiership growth has slowed sharply, while the economy was contracting in September. “They’re not good enough and I want them to improve,” he told me bluntly when I interviewed him at the G20 summit.

But more arresting is the real-life backlash against the decisions made by the prime minister and his chancellor in the October budget.

As the PM convened for the closing family photo in the sunny climes of Rio, back home 13,000 farmers and protesters descended on Westminster to make their anger over changes to inheritance tax heard.

This is one bit of the budget his opponents believed would unravel – see Ruth Davidson on our Electoral Dysfunction Budget pod special – and now farmers are parking their tractors on Starmer’s lawn.

Then there is the decision to lift employers’ national insurance.

Retailers are warning that 1,000s of jobs will have to go, and Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England agrees.

And his early decision to means test the winter fuel allowance means an extra 100,000 pensioners could be in poverty by 2027, according to the government’s own impact assessment.

The prime minister bunches them all as the “tough decisions” he’s having to take to “stabilise” the economy and improve public services.

But his issue – and I have written and talked quite a bit about this – is these big decisions were not flagged before the last election. He argues it is because of what he describes as the £22bn Conservative black hole.

Some voters – not least those farmers who descended on Westminster – are clearly feeling hard done by and for his part, the prime minister, backed up by his massive majority, is not backing down.

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He was at pains over recent days to point out it is only landowning couples with estates worth over £3m that will face inheritance tax. He is, by his own admission to me in our interview, asking these wealthier people to pay more for better public services.

From parents who send their kids to private schools, to those who earn income from assets, to farmers with big estates to business owners, Starmer is taxing the more.

Read More:
What’s the beef with farmers’ inheritance tax?
Farmers’ tax protest portrays mounting concern for the sector

The first group knew it was coming from the manifesto, the rest did not. When I asked Starmer if he was engaging in a “class war” by targeting landowners and private schools, he said “absolutely not”.

“Look, It isn’t at all what we’re doing. It’s a balanced approach. We have to fill a black hole which was left by the last government,” he said,

“We had to make sure we stabilised our economy and we’ve invested and I think the vast majority of people know that we have to invest in our NHS, which was broken, in our schools to make sure every single child could go as far as their talent will take them, and in housing, so that people can have a safe and secure roof over their head that they can afford. This sort of base camp for their dreams.”

What’s becoming very clear as the new government settles in is that this is a PM who puts “working people” at the heart of his decision-making.

Starmer has not been the easiest prime minister to define, especially if you line him up against some of the most consequential post-war leaders – Margaret Thatcher (enterprise and free markets), Clement Attlee (welfare state) and Tony Blair (modernisation).

When I asked him what his “essence” was in a word, he said: “I want working people to be better off.”

A working people warrior? “Yes, I want working people to be better off and I make no apologies for that”.

At his closing press conference, as it was all kicking off outside No 10 back home, he was at pains to stress his attendance at summits such as the G20 was all about “delivering for the British people”.

He talked about building trade ties with China, re-starting trade talks with India, and developing new fighter jets with Japan and Italy as he spoke of how this collection of 20 industrialized nations accounted for four fifths of the world’s GDP.

The hope inside his team is the heavy diplomatic lifting will pay off in the coming months if the prime minister can attract more inward investment and improve trade ties.

Because at the moment, he looks like a prime minister more focused on global affairs than the pressures he’s facing back home – and the noisy protests look only set to grow.