With his ‘great reset’, the prime minister must administer an injection of confidence and charisma

Editorial: By unveiling a Plan for Change six months after a landslide election, Keir Starmer plainly understands that his government’s policies are failing to land properly. This is his chance to inspire us

Is “more bobbies on the beat” really what passes for “a big idea” for Sir Keir Starmer’s ambitious “decade of renewal”? It is probably the easiest to achieve of the latest consignment of promises in the prime minister’s much-trailed Plan for Change, to be unveiled on Thursday.

Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong in recruiting an extra 10,000 police officers to be on the streets by the next election, nor diverting 3,000 more into “frontline” work.

But it is not the kind of dramatic transformation that had been promised, seemingly, in the election campaign and before. An unkind observer might draw an unfavourable comparison with the time when John Major, towards the end of a long spell of Conservative rule, was scrabbling around for initiatives that would have instant voter appeal and came up with the “cones hotline”, a Pooterish policy that rained ridicule on the already beleaguered premier’s head.

It may be recalled that, late in his premiership, Rishi Sunak laid out his “five people’s priorities”, including the foolish promise to “stop the boats”. It’s fair to say Mr Sunak’s pledges made zero positive impact on his already slender chances of clinging to power.

With yet another “reset” mere months after the general election, friendly, constructive critics of the government can at least draw some comfort from the fact that Sir Keir and his colleagues plainly understand that the government’s key messages aren’t getting through. That is to be applauded.

But there are questions about whether the cabinet realises why its political “narrative”, such as it is, is failing to land properly. The answer is “trust”.

It is certainly disturbing that the question of trust has emerged as such a concern so early in the life of the government. Not quite six months in, and it is clear that public and business confidence has been falling, and with it the poll ratings of the Labour Party and the prime minister himself. Few governments have suffered a shorter “honeymoon”, and the fact is that the voters are palpably falling out of love with the party they turned to when the Conservatives so badly let them down.

It’s not quite a case of a relationship built on the rebound but it’s true that many voters lent Sir Keir their vote to get the Tories out – an overwhelming impulse last July – and what they have experienced since has been at odds with their expectations.

There have been too many such egregious breaches of trust, real or perceived. Would, for example, any pensioner have enthusiastically voted for Labour had they known the winter fuel allowance was shortly to be restricted to the very poorest of them?

When Steve Reed, as shadow environment secretary, told the National Farmers’ Union that his party had no plans to alter agricultural property relief on inheritance, was it not reasonable for folk to take him at his word?

No one, in other words, really expected £40bn in assorted tax hikes to hit the economy within weeks of Labour taking office. Another conspicuous casualty is the rash manifesto pledge “to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7”. Rash, that is, because Ms Reeves has no influence on the progress of the American, Canadian, Japanese, German, French and Italian economies, and not that much over her own. It has now been deftly downgraded.

So now Sir Keir, at Prime Minister’s Questions, deftly avoids repeating what was the central aim of the central mission of his administration – growth.

On top of all that, the prime minister has already lost one cabinet secretary, his chief of staff and a transport secretary, with rumours about power struggles in a male-dominated No 10. The discipline shown in opposition has sagged in office. The voters are left bemused, and also disappointed.

The government is right to say that it inherited a mess from the Conservatives, especially in the public finances and industrial relations. It is fair to say – though Labour hasn’t done so sufficiently loudly or eloquently – that it was almost set up to fail by its predecessors. Yet the government cannot indefinitely use the manifest failings of its predecessors as a kind of “get out of jail free” card.

The prime minister has hovered between bright optimism and “things can only get worse” gloominess since he won his landslide, and at the moment the need is to stress the upside of that ubiquitous slogan, “change” – to show what the sacrifices that people are being asked to make are actually for.

This latest reset, then, is a moment when Sir Keir can administer an injection of confidence and charisma into his presentation. This must be a chance to inspire.