Sir Keir Starmer is probably the next Prime Minister but that doesn't mean Labour aren't in trouble

The country has so many problems that many MPs don’t think they’re solvable in the next parliament.

Sir Keir Starmer is probably the next Prime Minister but that doesn’t mean Labour aren’t in trouble

Sir Keir Starmer is almost certainly the next Prime Minister, but faces an almost impossible task.

The Labour leader will inherit a crippled economy, conflicts across continents, and deep-rooted problems with no immediate fix. Unfortunately for Sir Keir, the country is crying out for an immediate fix, and so far, his response to issues has been to condemn them without offering a solution.

Concerned over the Government’s Autumn Statement? So is Sir Keir, but there are no specifics on what he’ll do differently. Concerned about benefits? So is Sir Keir, but it’s unclear how the system will be reformed. Have any issue whatsoever? Stay down, Sir Keir will run for help, he’ll be back eventually with a solution.

This is no attack on the Labour leader, who after a disastrous election result in 2019 has made his party electable again and started winning seats in Scotland. The party needed a miracle, and two have come along.

But that doesn’t mean the party has answers, which will not cut it when he sweeps into Downing Street as the nation expects. On so many of the big issues, Labour has yet to put together a policy platform or detailed answers on how it will fix things. And boy are there problems to fix.

Consider council budgets for one, cut to the core repeatedly under the Tories, and now worried about going bankrupt. That’s not just libraries closing under the horror of David Cameron’s austerity, that’s essential services that could go under, and forms a local government landscape in which record number of authorities have issued section 114 notices.

Speaking of budgets, Jeremy Hunt, savvy operator that he is, cut departmental budgets but deferred them, meaning departments will have to do more, with less, all to allow the Chancellor to dish out tax cuts, appeasing Tory MPs, but slashing public services. Balancing the books and offering better services seems an impossible task, but is an essential one given how stretched they already are.

It’s the same in the NHS, where this year a record integrated care systems (ICSs) are struggling to balance their budgets. Sir Keir and his shadow health secretary have spoken of refining it, using AI to help existing staff, but these are just words. The NHS doesn’t need words, Government departments don’t need words, they need money, and lots of it. That’s not to mention social care, an ever worsening issue abandoned by Mr Sunak.

Even on migration, that great beast that the Tory party relishes eating itself over, Labour will need a take beyond managing Britain’s borders in a more ethical way. Given the scale of the crisis in Rishi Sunak’s Government, criticising them is easy, and all the attention is obviously on Rome as it falls, burnt down by Spartans on the inside.

Labour are ready to win, that much is clear, and have policies that will change people’s lives such as the new deal for working people, and GB Energy.

But the nations problems are so deep-rooted, so widespread, and so impossible, the public needs more. Sir Keir has work to do to show he can solve them.