The problems Keir Starmer faces are not just political - they are spiritual

His greatest battle may be the fight for our trust.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

The beginning of a new government is a bit like the beginning of a new football season. Nothing yet has gone wrong. The future seems full of promise. The grim memory of last season is in the past. Hope is in the air.

Keir Starmer, in his early speeches as Prime Minister, sound some familiar notes. He speaks of “a weariness in the heart of a nation, a draining away of the hope, the spirit, the belief in a better future that we need to move forward together.” While not quite Margaret Thatcher’s invoking the spirit of St Francis in 1979, Sir Keir was reaching for something deeper than the practicalities of politics, for bigger themes, more resonant ideas. Yet there was one note that caught my eye, not just in these speeches but also before that in the election campaign – a theme that cropped up often – the need for trust.

On the day after the election, when the confirmation came through that Labour had won, in an early morning speech to supporters delivered at the Tate Modern, he said this: “Make no mistake, this is the greatest test for politics in this era – the fight for trust is the battle that defines our age.”

Keir Starmer has put his finger on something. As Martin Kettle in the Guardian put it, “Whether you approve of Keir Starmer’s election strategy or not, it is a matter of observable fact that he has centred it upon the regaining of trust.” The Labour manifesto claimed that “over the last 14 years, trust in politics has been shattered.” It went on: “sleaze and scandal have eroded trust. Just as corrosive has been the inability of politicians to keep promises made to the British people.” Among the main reasons the Conservatives were roundly rejected were the actions of Boris Johnson’s inner circle, who partied in Downing Street while families were avoiding each other and staying away from their parents’ funerals (I know – I was one of them). I'm not sure that he and his party realised how corrosive and damaging that was to public trust in government and the Conservatives in particular. Perhaps now they know.

Trust is built when politicians keep their promises and deliver what they say they will over the months and years. It wilts in the presence of political in-fighting, bets placed by election candidates, or unfulfilled boasts to save the NHS.

Hope and trust are vital things for human life. We cannot live without them. And it’s not just in politics. The Church of England has had its own troubles with trust in recent times. A report, debated at General Synod, lamented the lack of trust in the Church, setting it in the context of a general lack of trust in institutions in our society.

Starmer understands that trust has to be earned. “This lack of trust,” he said outside No 10 Downing Street, “can only be healed by actions not words.” And trust takes time. Trust is built when politicians keep their promises and deliver what they say they will over the months and years. It wilts in the presence of political in-fighting, bets placed by election candidates, or unfulfilled boasts to save the NHS.

However, to be fair to politicians, trust has not only to be earned, it also has to be given. And we have become less trusting as a nation. The IPSOS Trust Index reveals that politicians, the media, bankers and advertising executives are our least trusted institutions. An ONS survey in 2023 revealed that trust in political parties, the media, local government, and international organisations was at its lowest level for years. A survey of over 36,000 interviews across 28 countries revealed “a world ensnared in a vicious cycle of distrust, fuelled by a growing lack of faith in media and government. Through disinformation and division, these two institutions are feeding the cycle and exploiting it for commercial and political gain.”

To break what it called the ‘cycle of distrust’, it recommended demonstrating tangible progress, focussing on long-term thinking and providing credible information. Yet I wonder if the problem lies deeper than that.

Trust is a habit. It is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the more it tends to grow. Yet the paradox of trust is that without trustworthy objects in our lives, it becomes hard to exercise that muscle. A child growing up with parents who regularly deceive and lie to him, promising but not showing up to sports events, hinting at presents that never actually turn up, quickly learns that trust doesn't work. The disappointment is too great to bear. Cynicism works better. He learns to take everything with a pinch of salt, to be wary of promises, and that a guarded attitude where the default position is not to believe is a safer option.

In a broken and fallen world, trust is a fragile thing. Some people and institutions will be more trustworthy than others, but even the best will get things wrong...

The problem politicians face is that politics, as they say, is the art of the possible, and along the way, whether due to financial constraints, or the need to do deals with allies, political opponents, or (more likely for Starmer, given the size of his majority) within your own party, compromises have to be made, promises ‘re-aligned’ if not actually broken, which is where distrust starts to creep in. Nick Clegg famously made a promise that his party would never increase student fees, yet in the cut and thrust of actually having to govern, he had to break that promise, and his version of the Liberal Democrat party never recovered.

A little while ago, I interviewed Esau McCaulley, an African-American theologian and New York Times columnist with a fascinating backstory. His childhood in the backstreets of Alabama was complicated by an intermittently absent and unreliable father, whose promises were broken again and again. Esau learnt to approach the world with wariness, burned by broken promises. Yet somehow, through the determination of a good mother and the steady influence of a local church, he learnt to trust again. As he put it: “others must own their scepticism, and I my trust, both of which arise out of deeply held convictions about the nature of reality.”

Like Starmer, McCaulley has put his finger on something. The question of whether or not we believe ultimate reality can be trusted lies beneath our cultural tendencies towards trust or mistrust. Ultimately, trust needs a transcendent object. In a broken and fallen world, trust is a fragile thing. Some people and institutions will be more trustworthy than others, but even the best will get things wrong and when those people and institutions that we have trusted implicitly let us down, it is the hardest fall of all.

Judaism and Christianity, in particular the latter, have made a big deal about faith and trust. The Bible is not a list of pithy, timeless aphorisms, but consists of a story across time – and as we saw, trust takes time. One of the central characteristics of the God of the Christian Bible is faithfulness across time. It tells the story of a God who makes a world with a regularity that can be trusted, where the sun rises and sets, light follows darkness, where the fluctuations of a dynamic planet are contained - hence the symbol of the rainbow as a sign that God will not ultimately destroy his creation. When the creation is disrupted by a primeval act of rebellion by the very species that was intended to care for the creation, God promises to send a rescuer from out of that very species to redeem it, a promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It then promises the as-yet-unfulfilled hope that the world will one day be healed and brought to its fullness. We do not yet see that, but on the basis of promises previously kept, we are invited to trust. The narrative arc of the Bible is a story that is designed to inculcate trust.

Contemporary spirituality does not have such a focus on faithfulness in time. An appeal to ‘find our spiritual centre’, to ‘accept the present moment’ may bring a temporary sense of peace and serenity. It doesn’t rebuild trust. Because trust, as Keir Starmer has recognised, is built slowly over time by trusting in someone who proves themselves trustworthy.

Having such a transcendent horizon of faith tends to build the muscle of trust. It turns the dial from the default of distrust to that of trust. It becomes just a little easier to handle the disappointments of broken promises in this world because ultimate reality can be trusted.

All this tells us that the deepest problems we face as the new government begins its work are not just political - they are spiritual. I for one hope and pray that Keir Starmer's government will be as trustworthy as he hopes it will be. It would be wonderful if they can rebuild a sense of trust in politics. But there are limits to what politics and politicians can do. They cannot ultimately heal our hearts from the damage done to our ability to trust. Only a faithful God can do that.

Starmer is, well known as an atheist. In seeking to build trust, he has hit the right note. In identifying trust as the key issue of the day, he is perhaps unknowingly reaching out for the God he doesn’t believe in, but who builds trust in those who do.

Voting is much more than a token gesture

The political practice can capture something heavenly.

Joel Pierce

Joel Pierce is the administrator of Christ's College, University of Aberdeen. His forthcoming book Rights, Virtue, and Others in MacIntyre is due out in August 2024.

A sign reading 'polling station' stands by the entrance to a church.

What makes an act sacred? Who it excludes, or who it welcomes? I found myself pondering this looking at the thin metal discs in the box I’d pulled off the shelf. I’d seen their tagged under glass at Scotland’s National Museum. Now, in an archive housed in the old kitchen of our rural community’s school, I had my first chance to touch what was once called “the open sesame to the bliss of so great a mercy”, a Church of Scotland communion token. Now items for collectors, filling drawers in local history museums, they once were the necessary payment for participation in one of the rites at the heart of Christian worship. They were the coin that verified that its holder’s faith and morals had been examined by an elder of the kirk and been found satisfactory.

Holy Communion, or the Eucharist as it is called in other churches, has its origins in the Last Supper, a meal of bread and wine Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. Christians may disagree on the exact meaning of the meal, but all hold that it is, in some way, sacred and central to the Christian life and the recognition and celebration of Christian community. Communion tokens were but one example of a strategy that Christians have employed time and again to ensure that the mystery and sacrality of the meal is properly recognised: stopping the wrong sorts of people from participating in it. Ironically, in this we have often been much more discerning, or perhaps discriminating, than Jesus himself. The companions he chose to initiate the practice were a quarrelsome lot. They were mostly provincial fishermen more concerned with establishing their place in the new kingdom they imagined Jesus would establish after overthrowing the Romans than in participating in the meal with due reverence and seriousness.

All who came were for that day, in that room, in that act, equal. All who came were welcome. No one was turned away.

A year later, I found myself sitting behind a table in the rear of our community’s nursery. It was election day for the Scottish Parliament, and I had added polling clerk to the miscellany of part-time jobs I had taken after finishing my studies. We had all arrived early to ensure that we had time to wrestle enough string and cable ties together to secure the polling station sign around the ancient tree that marked the entrance of the nursery’s car park before polls opened at 7am. It was the first, and only time I have worked a sixteen-hour day, and my exhaustion at the end of it probably contributes to much of it being a bit of blur. What I do remember is the flow of people: mums in smart blouse and skirt combinations with kids in tow, fitting us in first thing before a stop by the childminder’s on the way to the office; tradespeople and farmers catching us between jobs, their trousers still spattered with paint or mud; scions of the local aristocracy; proud parents bringing teenagers to vote for the first time once the school day ended; a couple with a young baby, asleep for now, arriving just before closing, “We’re not too late are we?”.

My fellow poll workers, two old hands, knew most of our customers by sight. I knew a few, mainly other parents I had met during school and nursery drop-offs, but it didn’t matter as the rite was the same for all. They would approach the table, give us their name and address, and once a line was drawn through them on our roll, they were given the elements, two ballots, one to vote for their constituency Member of the Scottish Parliament, and another to vote for their preferred party. All who came were for that day, in that room, in that act, equal. All who came were welcome. No one was turned away. All that was needed was their word that they were who they said they were. Once the ballots were completed, we made sure they put each in the correct ballot and then they were out the door, on to the rest of their day.

Perhaps it is also true that sometimes, as much by accident as intention, we happen upon a form or practice in our shared political life which captures something of heaven.

As someone who did my first voting in the United States, I was a little stunned the first time I cast a ballot in the UK. Instead of having to use a black ink pen to assiduously fill in ovals on a ballot that felt like an extended multiple-choice test, all I needed to do was make a single penciled ‘X’ on a half sheet of coloured paper and make sure it wound up in the secure box. Was that it?

As I’ve reflected on that experience and had a few more goes of voting here, I have come to appreciate the elegance of the British approach. Instead of making the voter feel like an overwhelmed bureaucrat having to make a couple dozen underinformed choices on matters as diverse as national representatives, state laws, school boards, and local ordinances, the simplicity of the UK ballot means that what is centred is the social meaning of the act itself. We may be differentiated on all other days by class, culture, income, region, or football club allegiance, but in this act we come as close in our political practices as we ever do to touching something which Christians know, something which Christians sometimes see as they share Communion, that all these distinctions are ultimately passing, that beyond them each one of us is imbued with a dignity which the greatest worldly failure cannot take away from us and to which the greatest worldly success cannot add.

There is a school of thought in political theory which says that all our most important political concepts are actually secularised theological ones. They say, for example, that our exalted ideas of state sovereignty find their origins in our forebears’ understanding of God’s. Theologians draw various lessons from this approach, some worrying that what it really reveals is that we have made an idol of the state. They may be right, but perhaps it is also true that sometimes, as much by accident as intention, we happen upon a form or practice in our shared political life which captures something of heaven. It is not wrong, I think, to accord such secular practices a certain level of sanctity. It is not wrong to call the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ in some sense sacred.

No longer are we allowed to trust that people are who they say they are. They are assumed to be imposters until they produce a piece of paper which says otherwise.

But once that sacredness has been granted, we face a very similar problem to the one faced by those early Scottish reformers regarding Communion. How do we ensure this sacredness is protected, that it does not become debased? A traditional answer has mirrored the reformers’ approach to communion: erecting hurdles to ensure that only the truly worthy are allowed to participate. The unmaking of this approach has been the slow work of centuries as the franchise was eventually extended down the social and property ladder to all male citizens and, then, belatedly, to all women as well. What I experienced at the polling station that day was a miracle secured by many years’ of struggle, reform, compromise, and collective recognition that what has made this act sacred is not its exclusion, but its welcome. In this it has mirrored the welcome of most contemporary Communion services in the Church of Scotland where participants are, to be sure, asked to approach the act soberly, having examined themselves and made confession to God, but where the default is to trust that people have done so. No longer are people considered unworthy until proven otherwise by their possession by a metal disc.

When I first heard of the possibility of the introduction of Voter IDs at polling places, my mind immediately flew to how such laws were aimed in the United States. Like here, there is little to no actual evidence of voter fraud there, but in a country where the archaic system of the Electoral College means a few thousands votes in the right state can decide a presidential election, there is a real threat that such laws will sway election results. Here the influence of such laws is less clear. While they do seem to have a small effect of driving down participation, at last year’s local elections four pre cent of eligible non-voters cited the ID requirement as the reason they did not vote, recent election results have not been dramatically out of step with opinion polling.

What I do worry about losing with these laws is a little bit of the elegance and dignity which has previously imbued the UK system. No longer are we allowed to trust that people are who they say they are. They are assumed to be imposters until they produce a piece of paper which says otherwise. It is a small change, but one which nudges the rite closer to being just one more bureaucratic transaction, a bit more like picking up a package or going to the bank, than one of our most important public rites. It is a precaution that seeks to preserve the sacredness of the act, but is chipping away at what it is that makes it sacred.
If I wind up working in a polling station on July 4th, I will dutifully check every voters’ ID prior to handing them a ballot. I will send friends and neighbours home to get theirs if they’ve forgotten it. I will be careful to bring my own. I am sure if I had lived in former times in Scotland, I also would have been careful to remember to take my communion token to church. Those are the rules of admittance and the rite is too important to skip. However, I will mourn a little for what has been lost and hope for more places where we recognize the possibility of the sacred dwelling in our practices of welcome, recognition, and trust rather than exclusion.