‘Callaghan reborn? Why the former PM is the Labour figure Starmer best evokes’

In trying to get a fix on what kind of Prime Minister Keir Starmer will prove to be, commentators have reached for various historical antecedents.

Given Starmer once said Harold Wilson was his favourite Labour leader, they have searched for parallels there. And certainly Wilson’s 1960s emphasis on the need for economic growth is shared by his latest successor.

But Starmer’s disciplined focus on winning over Conservative voters and the fiscal rectitude of his Shadow Chancellor have also led some to perceive a Tony Blair reborn. A few brave souls have even seen in him Clement Attlee, including Starmer himself.

In contrast, nobody has looked into Starmer’s eyes and found any trace of Jim Callaghan, whose 1976-9 administration is conventionally regarded as the last knockings of the post-war social democratic consensus, one brushed aside by Margaret Thatcher’s neo-liberalism.

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Given this, it is no wonder that, in a 2019 YouGov survey, which asked Britons who they thought was the best post-war Prime Minister, Callaghan received 0%. That Thatcher came top explains why Starmer has sometimes evoked her memory in his cause while the name of the man she replaced has never crossed his lips.

Given the result of the 2024 election, there is certainly a big difference between the two men. If Starmer’s Commons majority is 174, for much of his time as Prime Minister, Callaghan had no majority at all and had to makes deals with the Liberals and other minor parties to stay in office. The kind of revolt Starmer’s government recently suffered over the two-child cap would have been enough to end Callaghan’s time in power.

Why Callaghan is the Labour figure Starmer best evokes

There is however a shared basic dilemma that means Callaghan is the Labour figure Starmer best evokes – and the one who has a critical lesson for his government.

Callaghan had been an MP half his life before becoming Prime Minister at 64 and embodied a cautious, culturally conservative Labourism to such an extent sarcastic journalists called him the “keeper of the cloth cap”.

But he inherited an economy from Wilson suffering from low growth and high inflation which threatened to destroy all Callaghan and his party held dear. ‘There are,’ he told MPs on his election, ‘no soft options facing Britain.’ His solution – attacked by the left as the one Conservatives would have followed – was to reduce public spending while encouraging private sector investment.

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Labour radicals were hardly reassured when Callaghan as Prime Minister addressed the country about the need for standards in schools and law and order on the streets. But once the sacrifices had been made and growth restored, Callaghan’s loyal Chancellor Denis Healey promised Labour’s 1978 conference ‘another great leap forward… to the realisation of our socialist ideals’.

By the summer of 1978, the squeeze on real incomes and public services appeared to be working as the economy was growing and living standards rising. However, instead of calling an election, Callaghan unexpectedly pressed on and, in the name of fighting inflation in the national interest, sought to keep wage rises down to 5%, a figure most believed unrealistic.

In this, he took trade union members’ loyalty to the party for granted and provoked the ‘winter of discontent’, a revolt of public sector employees whose real incomes his government had especially borne down upon. It was this strike wave that definitively handed the 1979 election to Thatcher.

Notable similarities between the two men’s approaches

What Callaghan, one of the few Labour leaders not to attend university, was in his bones Starmer – the socially mobile north London lawyer – has learnt to become.

Starmer’s patriotism has been demonstrated by standing next to flags while he has had to say out loud what Callaghan rarely even needed to think. This performative rather than instinctive Labourism however still bends towards a (relatively) cultural conservatism meant to rebuild a relationship with the working class, once Labour’s bedrock under Callaghan.

Certainly, Callaghan would have approved of Starmer’s sternly anti-liberal position on immigration. The last election suggests Starmer’s approach here has been a qualified success.

READ MORE: ‘Closer cross-Channel cooperation on migration is vital for Starmer’s European reset’

The grim economic situation and the strategy to overcome it – a focus on growth while keeping a tight lid on spending – is also one both men genuinely share, as is the criticism and impatience it provokes from Labour members.

Similarly, Starmer promises salvation through sacrifice in the form of his five mostly ten-year missions which, if not quite building socialism, aim to leave Britain greener and with better public services.

Can Starmer succeed where Callaghan failed?

There are many flies in the ointment which might frustrate Starmer, the most relevant being the trade unions. Labour’s New Deal for Working People promises more rights for employees but has already been a bitter battleground for the leadership and union leaders.

Should a Starmer government restore growth, workers – who have suffered a longer reduction in living standards than any striking Liverpool grave digger in 1979 – will expect some benefit. Will – unlike Callaghan – Starmer recognise that or continue to keep private investors happy in pursuit of growth?

READ MORE: Labour ensures minimum wage takes account of cost of living for first time

Despite their similarities, the two Labour leaders nonetheless face in very different directions. Callaghan struggled to maintain continuity with the post-war consensus in the face of headwinds which ultimately pulled Britain into a Thatcherite future.

In contrast, Starmer and Rachel Reeves promise change and, if the latter is true to her Mais Lecture, are on the cusp of shaping a new consensus to replace Thatcher’s. This is one that will recognise (as did Theresa May in 2016) “the good the state can do”. We will soon see if Prime Minister Starmer will succeed where Callaghan sadly failed.

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