Goodall Doc: Starmer Is 'Fundamentally Anti-Political'
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- Lewis Goodall's documentary investigates why Keir Starmer's approval ratings are historically awful, commissioning a survey in which a majority of respondents said the PM should resign, has moved too slowly on change, and lacks a clear plan.
- Survey respondents' top one-word descriptions of Starmer were "incompetent", "useless" and "weak", underscoring the scale of public disgruntlement the film sets out to explain.
- Goodall's central thesis is that Starmer is "fundamentally anti-political" with no grand strategy or defining vision — a reading shared across the political spectrum by Alan Johnson and Bridget Phillipson defending him, John McDonnell and Kim Johnson criticising him, and Michael Gove splitting the difference.
- The documentary highlights Starmer's post-leadership pivot to the right, including U-turns on winter fuel payment cuts and retention of the two-child benefit cap — neither in Labour's election manifesto — which Goodall argues opened space for the Greens to steal progressive votes.
- The "island of strangers" immigration speech is cited as evidence that Starmer, in trying to neutralise the electoral threat of Reform, has ceded rhetorical ground to the right.
- The reviewer argues Goodall sidesteps a more uncomfortable reading: that Starmer's Gaza stance, his authoritarian response to protest, and Labour's shift from many small membership fees to relatively few corporate donations point to a coherent ideology of preserving the status quo rather than a lack of conviction.
- The Peter Mandelson ambassador appointment is treated in the film as a sincere if misguided attempt to court trade deals from Donald Trump, with Goodall identifying Starmer's dealings with Trump and his stance on Iran as evidence of backbone — a framing the reviewer calls suspiciously charitable.
Why it matters: Starmer campaigned on a bus labelled "CHANGE", but the documentary's own survey shows a majority now want him gone, with the public's top one-word descriptions of him being "incompetent", "useless" and "weak". By diagnosing this as a personal lack of conviction rather than a coherent conservative project, Goodall's film risks helping Starmer evade the harder question about whose interests his government actually serves.
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