Empty questions, empty answers: if Keir Starmer was looking for a fresh start in 2026, Sunday morning’s telly interview was not it
Columnist ANDREW FISHER, pictured right, begins the New Year doing a spot of TV reviewing, and reveals how four of Croydon’s mayoral candidates will be invited to take part in his podcast interviews
To start 2026, we were treated to a television long-form interview: Kuenssberg vs Starmer.
Frost/Nixon it was not.
Not even Walden-Thatcher.
It’s a shame, because I’ve always been an advocate for longer form interviews, because too often we allow politicians to get away with vacuous soundbytes, diversions and obfuscation, without the interviewer having the time to pin the politician down into giving a straightforward answer.
And on the other hand, too often interviewers are trying to get a clippable Gotcha! moment, rather than even seek understanding. Or they are trying to cram too many topics into a short time that allows politicians to give their pre-rehearsed lines with no scope for further scrutiny.
Sunday’s “exclusive and extended” televised interview started with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg walking and talking as they traversed No10.
“I knew this would be tough, there’s nothing easy about this, and so it has been. But the question now as we turn ’25 into ’26 is… erm… we’re turning a corner,” said Starmer. Erm, that’s not a question.
It went downhill from there.
Starmer is like some sort of malfunctioning AI bot: “Turning the corner”, “renewing the country”, “change this country around”, “meet the challenge”, he spluttered, scraping the back of his mind for the empty statements his aides had advised him to use.
Watch your back: Health Secretary Wes Streeting (right) has his eyes on Keir Starmer’s job
There was no reflection on his many mistakes that have seen Labour’s polling plummet to a new low of 17% with YouGov this week – two points behind Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives. His own personal ratings have sunk to depths no Prime Minister has ever achieved (though perhaps if Liz Truss had just been given a little more time …).
For Starmer, time looks to be running out, as Labour MPs report that they are being tapped up by the campaign teams of his would-be successors – chiefly the current Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
MPs who are uninspired by those choices plot to return Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to Westminster and install him as leader. According to polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice, Burnham represents Labour’s best chance of retaining power, saying “his popularity is clearly more extensive than any of the other candidates”.
Streeting recently tried to court the Europhile Labour membership by stating that the government should consider rejoining the European Customs Union, which would bring “enormous economic benefits”.
Speaking to Kuenssberg on Sunday, Starmer said that it would be better to look at the single market than a Customs Union (and he’s right). But he then ruled out freedom of movement, a requirement of single market membership!
Of course, Starmer courted the support of the Labour membership before by saying he would fight to protect freedom of movement when Britain left the EU, only to then abandon that pledge.
Starmer’s rivals are plentiful.
Yesterday, Preet Kaur Gill MP, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Liz Kendall, wrote an op-ed in the Telegraph lauding the leadership merits of Mahmood.
“Shabana Mahmood has shown what that leadership looks like,” she wrote, a none-too-subtle message championing the merits of Blue Labour.
Leaning into this agenda, Starmer asserted to Kuenssberg that asylum seekers’ income should be taken into account on housing. Asylum seekers are banned from working. They have no income. Still, best not let the facts get in the way of an unhealthy spot of pandering by the PM.
Not a great look: it’s a four-way split in London in 2026, with Reform and Greens overtaking the Conservatives
While Starmer is deeply unpopular with the public, and seems to increasingly be seen as a liability by his own MPs, the reality is that in their own constituencies, both Streeting and Mahmood have wafer-thin majorities and look destined to lose their own seats at the next election.
In Ilford North, Streeting has a majority of just 500 (down from more than 5,000 in 2019), while in Birmingham Ladywood, Mahmood’s own margin of victory shrank from 28,000 in 2019 to 3,421 in 2024.
Given the scale of Labour’s polling collapse since 2024, neither is looking likely to hold their seat.
What role Croydon’s three Labour MPs play in the future of Labour’s leadership remains to be seen. But all will be acutely aware of new polling showing the party slumping to its lowest position on record at 17% to 19% (depending on which pollster you prefer), down from 43% in 2024).
This is not good news for the Conservatives, either, who in polling in the Labour-supporting London have slumped to fourth place on just 17%, having been overtaken by both Reform (on 19%) and the Greens (18%).
Long-form interviews – especially for Croydon
Big names, big interviews: Croydon mayoral candidates will be the guests on upcoming Andrew Fisher Interviews
Just over a year ago, I started doing interview podcasts for Inside Croydon, securing some great guests for in-depth and informed discussion. We’ve covered the economy, housing, disability benefits, airport expansion, the state of London, new parties and old.
And 2026 is local election year.
With the race for the Croydon mayoralty more unpredictable than ever, we will be inviting each of the main candidates to be Croydon Mayor to take part in a long-form interview – more Walden than Kuenssberg, I’d like to think – to get past the soundbytes and rehearsed lines, and understand their vision for Croydon and how they intend to do the job.
And unlike political interviews on mainstream media, you can let us know the questions you want asked of each of the candidates.
- From 2015 to 2019, Andrew Fisher was the Labour Party’s Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn
- Fisher is also the author of The Failed Experiment – and how to build an economy that works, and now writes columns for InsideCroydon, the i newspaper and is a regular pundit on BBC and Sky News programmes
As well as his column, Andrew is conducting podcast interviews, in-depth and informed, with specialists and national figures, sharing their expertise with Croydon. They include an exclusive with Paul Holden, the author of the explosive new investigative book, The Fraud. It’s well worth a listen.- It’s available now on Inside Croydon’s Spotify channel
Andrew Fisher’s recent columns:
- That was the year that was – and 2026’s prospects look bleak
- 12,500 Croydon children lifted out of poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap. But what about homelessness?
- Now even Mayor Perry agrees we need to Fund Croydon Fairly
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs in 2025, for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
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“PM Starmer offers no answers” Lapdogs, in awe of America, never do (offer answers) !
What does Starmer stand for?
Does anybody know?
Does he know?
All very well blaiming the politician and it is inevitable as a Corbynite that Andrew will have little time for Starmer, but no mention of the inane client journalism of Kuenssberg. Someone who has dumbed down British politics into some form of emotive spasm for over a decade. How can you deal with someone who frames questions in the simple soundbites that Fisher is so critical of?
Certainly Starmer is not the most elegant of politicians, but the changes of policy recently to a more humane way of dealing with child benefits and moving forward to place the financing of Councils on a rational footing do show he is flexible. Would have anyone considered him booting Peter Mandelson out of Labour politics happending at the start of this Parliament?
The sad fact is he is the best of a bad bunch of contemporary Politicians and if he survives to be around to the next election despite the endless hostile media he faces it will probably mean he will be leading the next ruling party after the election. I can’t believe he will want to go on much longer after that.