Starmer told he is a ‘fundamentally an incompetent Prime Minister’

Political biographer Sir Anthony Seldon ripped apart Sir Keir Starmer and said he is “fundamentally incompetent Prime Minister.”

He told Newsnight that Starmer is “repeating the same mistakes” and that the Prime Minister has “begun so badly.”

Sir Anthony has written several biographies of every Prime Minister since Sir John Major and told the BBC’s Newsnight, “No Labour prime minister, certainly not since 1945, has begun so badly.”

Starmer was forced into U-turns on winter payment cuts, then the national grooming gangs scandal then again on benefits, the historian said the Prime Minister has “begun with such ignorance of history and how you conduct yourself as prime minister.”

“It tells a story of a fundamentally incompetent prime minister.”

Political biographer Sir Anthony Seldon believes that Keir Starmer has made the worst start of any Labour prime minister since 1945.
#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/pVmOut3izP

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 27, 2025

Sir Anthony said that Starmer is “incapable of telling a story,” and “he doesn’t understand that the Prime Minister is only there is you keep and carry your MPs with you.”

Discussing Starmer’s third U-turns and the recent announcement on Benefits he said, “If there was a clear vision that he’d laid out, a story about where he is taking the Labour Government and the country, people perhaps might understand why this cut was necessary. But there have been so many flip-flops, they don’t get it.

“It tells a story of a fundamentally incompetent prime minister. He’s repeating the same mistakes.”