Britain under Labour: mixed results after one year in power

Britain under Labour is, depending on who you ask, either slowly steadying or quietly sinking. Keir Starmer’s government, which swept to power in July 2024 with a landslide majority, has now had enough time in office for a genuine reckoning. The verdict is messy.

The economy: better than feared, worse than hoped

Growth crept up to 0.7% in the first quarter of 2025, which sounds modest and is. But it’s better than the near-stagnation that defined the final years of Conservative rule. Inflation has eased to around 2.6%, close to the Bank of England’s target, and unemployment remains relatively low at 4.4%. Still, real wages are only just outpacing price rises, and millions of households haven’t felt any tangible improvement in their day-to-day finances. The government raised the national living wage to £12.21 an hour in April — a genuine gain for lower earners — but businesses have complained loudly about rising payroll costs squeezing margins.

Public services: investment promised, results pending

Labour came in vowing to rebuild the NHS, fix crumbling schools and restore some faith in public institutions. It’s thrown money at the health service — an extra £22.6 billion announced in the autumn budget — but waiting lists remain stubbornly above 7 million. That’s not the kind of number that wins votes. A senior government adviser, speaking on background, acknowledged that “the structural problems in public services took fifteen years to build up and won’t be solved in fifteen months.” Fair point. But voters aren’t always patient.

Schools are seeing early investment in breakfast clubs and SEND support, and the new border security bill has passed. Yet the sense of transformation that Labour promised feels distant.

Politics: the honeymoon is well and truly over

Starmer’s approval ratings have collapsed. Polling in early 2025 put his net favourability at around minus 40, a staggering fall for a leader who won such a commanding majority. The winter fuel payment cut — stripping the benefit from millions of pensioners earning above £11,500 — became a political wound that won’t stop bleeding. And the row over accepting gifts, including clothes and glasses worth tens of thousands of pounds, damaged his carefully constructed image as a straight-talking reformer.

Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s insurgent party, is polling neck-and-neck with Labour in some surveys. That’s an extraordinary fact.

What comes next

The next few months will test whether Labour’s economic strategy can actually deliver visible results before the political damage becomes irreversible. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is betting that investment in infrastructure and clean energy will compound over time. It might. But the 2029 election is closer than it seems, and voters have short memories for promises and long ones for disappointments.

Britain under Labour isn’t broken. But it isn’t fixed either. That may be the most honest thing you can say about it right now.