Keir Starmer starts the new year in a strong position – but can he keep up the momentum?

Keir Starmer starts the new year on a high note. Not only has Labour opened a six-point lead over the Tories in the opinion polls, but they are starting to put him ahead of Boris Johnson as the most capable prime minister.

It’s the first time Labour has been ahead on this question since 2008, when Gordon Brown was in Downing Street, according to Ipsos Mori. Starmer is well ahead on having sound judgment, being honest and in touch with ordinary people. But Johnson still enjoys a lead on being good in a crisis, having a lot of personality and being patriotic.

In his reshuffle in November, Starmer finally put in place the shadow cabinet he wanted last May, when his shake-up was derailed by his attempt to demote Angela Rayner. His new team has had an impressive start and, for the first time under Starmer’s leadership, Labour looks capable of becoming a government-in-waiting.

It is not there yet. Starmer’s new year’s resolution should be to maintain the momentum of the last two months for the whole of 2022. He has looked more confident recently and his attacks on the government have become more aggressive and wounding. But even some allies admit he sometimes disappears from public view for too long. “He does well on something – such as his party conference speech [in September] – but then seems to go to sleep,” one Labour frontbencher told me.

Starmer himself is under no illusions, acknowledging in private Labour is behind where Tony Blair and David Cameron were at this stage of the game before winning from opposition. “He knows it,” said one ally.

Labour should be asking itself: would we really be six points ahead if Johnson had not made so many unforced errors lately? Crucially, Labour is not yet winning over enough disenchanted 2019 Tory voters; too many are in the “don’t know/won’t vote” column. They might be on a journey to Labour after turning against Johnson. Equally, they might be persuaded to stick with the Tories when choosing the next government. So winning trust on the economy is vital for Labour.

Yet the party must go further, ensuring the choice at the next election is not a re-run of 2019, which would suit the Tories nicely. That’s why, in his new year’s message, Starmer promised to use 2022 to set out “in detail, the ideas that I believe can build a New Britain,” starting with “security” and “prosperity.” It's time to deliver on this promise, especially on the "detail."

As Johnson’s problems mounted in his miserable end to 2021, Labour played its hand well. Wisely, it didn’t demand Johnson’s resignation; such rituals are more likely to persuade the tribal Tories to rally behind their beleaguered leader. But Labour milked every opportunity to portray him as weak, incompetent and untrustworthy. This is good politics since Starmer’s cautious (and sometimes boring) competence is an antidote to a clown whose jokes, as Starmer memorably argued, are “not funny any more”. A rather wooden lawyer who obeys the rules becomes more appealing when the PM, far from being “a different Tory”, seems to have reverted to type by believing in “one rule for us, and another for everyone else”.

To emphasise Johnson’s perilous position, Labour invites Tory MPs to end his premiership – but should be careful what it wishes for. It is dawning on senior Labour figures that a change of PM might not make the Tories look a divided, exhausted rabble on the way out after a long spell in office. Labour had high hopes of such a scenario in 1990, when John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher after her 11 years in Downing Street. But voters concluded they had already had a change of government and two years later gave the Tories another five years in power.

While Labour strategists do not lose too much sleep about Liz Truss becoming PM, they do worry about a Rishi Sunak premiership, fearing he would make the Tories look “new” yet again. (With the chancellor more popular with voters than the foreign secretary, Tory MPs will take note: a good rule in politics is to do what the other side don’t want you to).

There’s now a debate in Labour circles about whether it would be in the party’s best interests for Johnson to stay or go. Opinion is divided. “He’s the Tories’ biggest weakness but also their biggest asset,” said one Starmer ally. Some Tories agree, which is why Johnson will get a chance to turn things round until the local elections in May, which may well decide his fate.

Ironically, the better Labour does – and it does need to do better in 2022 – the more likely it is that Tory MPs take matters into their own hands and commit another act of regicide. A new PM who enjoyed the benefit of the doubt and got off to a good start might dilute the appeal of Starmer’s “competence” pitch, sending Labour back to square one, and with the right general for the last war rather than the next.