Labour’s latest big-name backing will force Tories to sit up and take notice

Editorial: With the support of the agency that helped deliver Thatcher to No 10, it is now up to the Labour leader to show that he can carry both the public and his party with him on the road to Downing Street

Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has backed Keir Starmer to win the next general election (PA)

Ahead of any general election, there are barometer moments – the kind that make the major parties sit up and take notice.

For Labour, there has been a slew of by-election wins in recent months – the latest registering big voter swings in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth last month. The Conservatives clung on to Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip by fewer than 500 votes in July, and lost Somerton and Frome to the Liberal Democrats in the same month.

National opinion polls have also been consistently against the Conservatives this year, with the latest Survation poll – based on new constituency boundaries that will take effect at the next election – suggesting that Sir Keir Starmer and his party would win a majority of more than 200 seats if an election were held tomorrow. That would be an even bigger landslide than Tony Blair pulled off.

And now we have another marker – one of the most prominent. Something that should make both parties pay attention.

Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency behind the emblematic messaging that took Margaret Thatcher into Downing Street in 1979, has hit out at Conservative “divisiveness” and “cruelty” and backed Sir Keir to win the next general election.

That famous advertisement – “Labour isn’t working” – has been hailed as one of the most influential ever in UK politics, and now, writing in The Independent, the agency’s chief strategy officer, Richard Huntington, has made clear he believes that today, it is the Conservatives that aren’t working. And that after more than a decade of Tory rule, we are heading for a change.

Rishi Sunak has sought to set out his stall as a “change” candidate, seeking to differentiate himself not just from Sir Keir but from recent Conservative leaders such as Mr Johnson, who did so much to drag down the level of political discourse in Britain and left the party looking increasingly incapable of effective government. That perception is not going away, and instead Mr Sunak is becoming the candidate for a change of party.

This intervention by Saatchi & Saatchi is the latest blow to Mr Sunak. The Conservatives have faced a series of donor desertions in recent months. Iceland’s executive chair, Richard Walker, became the latest to quit last month, saying he was “open” to supporting Sir Keir, while Phones4U founder John Caudwell said he would not back the Tories after the “madness” of Mr Sunak’s U-turn on net zero, and that he was thinking of giving to Labour instead.

Gareth Quarry, a businessman who made a fortune in recruitment, gave a six-figure sum to the Conservatives but has now called them unelectable and given a similar sum to Labour. Beyond Sir Keir, Conservative grandee Kenneth Clarke has backed Rachel Reeves as chancellor, following a ringing endorsement from the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney.

The challenge of effective government is one that Mr Huntington has laid down to Sir Keir, suggesting he needs to “overturn the idea that government of any stripe is ineffective”. It is clear that this is what the public want: a leader and a governing party ready to offer them an action plan for a brighter future. Mr Huntington says that is what Mr Blair offered, and the people believed Labour could deliver. It is now up to Sir Keir to prove that he can create that public enthusiasm.

One way of doing that is to show the qualities of a statesman. Sir Keir has demonstrated such qualities in his approach to what is happening in Israel and Gaza. It is a conflict that has created difficulties within Labour, with a number of MPs and local councillors going against the party line to express their support for a full ceasefire. But Sir Keir has not bowed to pressure, and has stood firm in his support for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting – a position he clearly feels is best for his party, the country, and the wider international community.

This will not be the only challenge Sir Keir faces in his mission to show the electorate he can be an effective leader. It is up to the Labour leader to demonstrate that he can carry both the public and his party with him on the road to Downing Street.