Keir Starmer’s inexperience is showing. He needs to get a grip

It should worry Keir Starmer and his ministers that six weeks after coming to power, it feels like they’re going through the motions.

Undoubtedly, like a majestic swan gliding serenely through the water, there is frenzied activity happening out of sight. But shouldn’t new administrations, especially administrations that have come to office after a prolonged period of opposition, bring with them a greater sense of excitement and anticipation than what we have seen so far?

True, across social media Labour Party activists seem to be permanently reaching for the smelling salts, so breathlessly overcome are they by Keir Starmer’s performance as prime minister so far.

But the sense from the rest of the country – among normal people, that is – seems to be part satisfaction that a government that had outlived its welcome has been given the kicking it deserved, and part resignation that this Faustian electoral pact must now unfold.

By no means has Starmer’s performance or that of his ministers been so underwhelming that the electorate feels any sense of buyers’ remorse. But that doesn’t mean that there is any danger of the prime minister having rose petals scattered in front of his car next time he ventures from Downing Street. In fact, if the government is enjoying any form of honeymoon period, it is one in which one half of the couple is strenuously and deliberately not noticing the more annoying aspects of their new partner’s behaviour.

Inflation, for example, has risen beyond the two per cent target set for the Bank of England by the Government.

Again, this is likely to raise eyebrows rather than blood pressure, but given the criticism Rishi Sunak endured from the Labour front bench for allowing inflation to head towards double figures, the new government can hardly claim that inflation has nothing to do with them.

There have been a series of other, worrying mistakes and missteps that may define the future pattern of the Government or, more optimistically, will become lessons from which ministers learn. Starmer’s own response to the riots of recent weeks was belated and, in some respects, misjudged. Choosing to castigate a nebulous “far Right” bogeyman while his ministers turned a deliberate blind eye to counter-demonstrators’ intimidation and threats of violence did not instil confidence in the Government’s ability to handle any future disruption.

On the economic front, chancellor Rachel Reeves has found that the time-honoured tradition of blaming the previous administration for every unpopular spending decision only gets you so far.

The decision to scrap the Winter Heating Allowance for pensioners not in receipt of Pension Credit may have been unavoidable, but it was politically clumsy. It felt and looked like the decision by David Cameron’s coalition government to scrap the Child Trust Fund – unnecessarily vindictive. What’s worse, it targeted precisely those people who, unlike younger citizens, are most likely to vote, while potentially not even raising the anticipated revenue the chancellor hoped for.

Talking of unforced errors, the normally impressive Bridget Philipson, the new education secretary, got off on the wrong foot by plunging head-first into the culture wars, taking the side of those on our university campuses who have successfully cancelled free speech and helped destroy the careers of academics with whom they disagreed.

One of her first acts was to suspend the provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which will be welcomed by the kind of student and university leader (not to mention civil servant) who believes that free speech, particularly on the vexed question of sex and gender, is “hurtful” or “violence”. Or something.

Meanwhile, the prospect of Britain becoming a full-throated opponent of Israel, the only functioning, liberal democracy in the Middle East, looms ever closer, and those who will claim it is nothing to do with Labour’s frantic efforts to win back the votes of pro-Gaza Muslims will have their work cut out for them.

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, got the ball rolling by announcing that Britain would be reinstating its funding of the United Nations Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, despite allegations that some of its own staff took part in the rape, murder, torture and kidnapping of Israeli civilians last October. Britain further deviated from its previous solidarity, not only with Israel but with the United States, by dropping its objections to the issuing of an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged “war crimes”.

An announcement is to be made shortly on whether Britain will impose a permanent ban on arms exports to Israel. While this sort of international victim-blaming may play well with certain communities in Britain, it makes a mockery of Starmer’s pre-election promises to support Israel in its fight for survival against the barbaric forces of Hamas Islamist terrorism. Still, in modern Britain votes are votes.

All in all, the early days of this government have not been without their problems. Such was to be expected from an administration whose leader and (most) senior figures entered office without any previous ministerial experience. Which is why voters probably feel inclined to cut them some slack.

But patience is finite. Ministers need to get a grip before it runs out.