“THE venom against a man who is serious and decent, with an impressive tally of good done, is a mystery to me.”

This was the recent hot take from Polly Toynbee, one of the Guardian’s longstanding columnists, about Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is the most unpopular British leader in the history of Ipsos polling.

Andy Beckett is similarly mystified, writing in the Guardian that “the current government, despite a bland, diligent leader and some decent policies, is despised by most voters with an intensity that may be unprecedented.”

Ditto the Guardian’s former economics editor Larry Elliott, who recently noted in the newspaper: “It is far from clear why the present Labour government has lost public support more extensively and more rapidly than those of the 1940s, 1970s and 2000s, even though economic conditions have been more benign.”

What’s particularly striking is Beckett and Elliott are both generally considered that rare thing — Guardian journalists who are somewhat sympathetic to the socialist left.

This, though, doesn’t stop them being unable to see what is obvious to the rest of us — why Starmer is so disliked, and why Labour has “suffered the worst-ever fall in support for a newly elected government,” according to polling expert John Curtice.

First, there are the actions and policies Starmer has undertaken as leader of the opposition and now leader of the Labour government.

Supporting Israel as Israel carries out a genocide in Gaza has probably pissed off quite a few people (call me old-fashioned but I’ve always drawn the line at support for genocide), as has their crackdown on protest, including the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Then there are Starmer’s attempts to scrap the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners and cut benefits for some of the most vulnerable people in society (the latter stymied by a back-bench revolt energised by strong public opposition), and their foot-dragging on the two-child benefit cap.

For me, their green policies have often been terrible, including backing the expansion of Heathrow and regional airports, along with ditching its pledge to spend £28 billion a year on its green investment plan.

And let’s not forget the government repeating far-right-style rhetoric and framing on immigration and asylum (and therefore empowering Reform), and it’s increasingly hard-line policies seemingly opposed by all NGOs working on asylum and immigration.

Second, there are the lies and deceptions that run through Starmer’s leadership of Labour and the country like a stick of rock.

Who remembers the 10 pledges Starmer made to win the Labour leadership in 2020? “Based on the moral case for socialism, here is where I stand,” he proclaimed, promising to “support the abolition of tuition fees,” “put human rights at the heart of foreign policy,” “support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water” and push for “an immigration system based on compassion and dignity.”

After he said Israel had the right to cut off water and electricity to Gaza on LBC Radio in October 2023, his spokesperson then denied he said it. And after Donald Trump rode a coach and horses through international law by kidnapping the Venezuelan president earlier this month, Starmer had the gall to repeatedly claim he was a “lifelong advocate of international law” while refusing to criticise the US president.

As journalist Owen Jones noted in October, “No British prime minister has discarded their claimed beliefs and policies so comprehensively or so swiftly” — he is “the biggest political conman of our age.”

The polls confirm the British public has noticed. “There’s a real dislike, even loathing of Starmer and [Chancellor Rachel] Reeves,” Luke Tryl, of the More in Common polling organisation, told the Financial Times in December. “In focus groups, people say Starmer is a liar and only said what he thought he needed to say to get elected.”

And finally, there are all the things Starmer hasn’t done — from nationalisation of key industries, moving away from an economics of austerity or seriously challenging Reform. There seems to be no long-term plan or vision… for anything. And nothing to suggest the government understands the seriousness and scale of the multiple, interconnected crises facing Britain, from the climate and ecological crisis, to the poverty crisis, the housing-homelessness crisis, and the crisis in the NHS.

In short, Starmer offers no fundamental break from the neoliberal, corporate-dominated economy forced through by Thatcherism over 40 years ago.

Back to the Guardian. It’s always worth remembering it “is not a left-wing newspaper,” as Des Freedman notes in the 2021 book he edited, Capitalism’s Conscience: 200 Years Of The Guardian (which, unsurprisingly, wasn’t reviewed by the Guardian).

“It is not affiliated to nor was it born out of left-wing movements” and “has never been a consistent ally of socialist or anti-imperialist voices.”

The professor of media and communication studies at Goldsmith’s goes onto explain the newspaper is the lodestar for a particular type of contradictory, Establishment-friendly liberalism “that can pursue equality, celebrate diversity and extol emancipation while simultaneously defending the institutions that give rise to inequality, discrimination and militarism.”

Tony Benn provided a similar, though less academic analysis, in his diaries: “The Guardian represents a whole batch of journalists, from moderate right to moderate left — ie centre journalists — who, broadly speaking, like the status quo. They like the two-party system, with no real change. They’re quite happy to live under the aegis of the Americans and Nato … they are very critical of the left … they are just the Establishment. It is a society that suits them well.”

The inability of Toynbee, Beckett and Elliott to comprehend why Starmer is so unpopular starts to make a lot more sense, as does their description of the Prime Minister as “decent” and “diligent” in the face of his complicity in genocide. And goes some way to explaining the Guardian’s hostility to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party (the paper backed Yvette Cooper in the 2015 leadership race).

But Freedman’s and Benn’s assessment also has important ramifications for the rest of us interested in radically changing Britain and wider world: rather than looking to Guardian columnists for inspiration and to explain the world, an essential task for the foreseeable future is supporting and building a powerful left-wing media that can successfully challenge the power of the ruling elite, including the Guardian itself.

Follow Ian on X @IanJSinclair.