Keir Starmer is promising Britain doom and gloom, but patience is wearing thin

Three months after a historic election victory, it felt like the downpour at the Labour Party’s conference would never end.

Lawmakers and officials in Britain’s new governing party have been trudging through a massive conference center in Liverpool, northwest England since Sunday in sodden suits, a rumbling River Mersey as their backdrop, for the group’s first set-piece event as a governing party in 15 years.

It was supposed to feel like a celebration. Prime Minister Keir Starmer touted July’s gigantic electoral landslide in his keynote speech on Tuesday, telling his party: “People said we couldn’t do it, but we did.”

A string of negative stories – about ministers accepting gifts and handouts, and reported conflict within Starmer’s top team – has clashed uncomfortably with a set of joyless policy decisions aimed at stabilizing Britain’s strapped finances, many of which go further and deeper than some inside the party expected when they promised a platform of change during the summer election campaign.

It means Britain’s new prime minister is already deeply unpopular with the public, according to a batch of unflattering opinion polls that landed with a thud as Labour’s conference began.