Massive wins and the promise of change – but that’s where the Starmer-Albanese similarities end

Massive wins and the promise of change – but that’s where the Starmer-Albanese similarities end

Keating, Albanese said, considered Labor to be a bit like a bicycle. “It only stands up when you pedal,” the party grandee once warned, suggesting that without ideas, direction or momentum, the whole show falls over.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Albanese had lamented the fate of his friend Keir Starmer, for whom things had truly fallen over.

On Monday night, Australian time, the British prime minister confirmed he would resign, less than two years on from a landslide election victory.

Starmer – the foreign leader with whom Albanese has most closely aligned himself – was the victim of the “harsh business” of politics, Albanese said, with former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham expected to be living at 10 Downing Street within weeks.

Albanese and Starmer had cooperated and collaborated, sharing policy ideas and messaging, even offering themselves up as the vanguard of progressive middle powers prepared to stand up to Donald Trump.

Visiting Liverpool last September, Albanese addressed the Labour conference, defending Starmer’s struggling leadership. He reminded nervous party members that leaders needed time to see their ambitions become reality.

But Albanese’s position is fundamentally different to Starmer’s, and his political fortunes are likely to be very different too.

Albanese is first and foremost a parliamentarian. He has decades of experience in politics and became prime minister after more than 25 years in Canberra.

Starmer, by contrast, entered Westminster a decade ago, after a career as a barrister and director of public prosecutions. Some colleagues accused him of showing contempt for politics and compromising too much on Labour’s values.

Since becoming opposition leader in 2019, Albanese’s backers say he has proved himself a skilled manager, maintaining strong relationships across the caucus. Like Starmer, Albanese has a big backbench to grapple with, but has done a better job at consultation and maintaining discipline. In short: he’s better at politics than Starmer.

A rough count of the internal rebellions against Starmer reaches double digits, where resistance or internal opposition to Albanese is somewhere between rare and nonexistent.

There are stark differences in personnel, too. Albanese’s chief of staff, Tim Gartrell, is a careful and thoughtful operator who worked for the future PM in his first run for parliament in 1996. The ALP national secretary, Paul Erickson, credited with masterminding the last thumping Labor victory, is viewed as a generational talent.

By contrast, Starmer’s onetime chief adviser Morgan McSweeney became a liability, including after pushing for his mentor, Peter Mandelson, to be appointed the UK ambassador to Washington DC, despite ties to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

One observer said this week Starmer had compromised too much, usually from a position of weakness, trying to be “all things to all people and ending up standing for nothing”. Albanese, by contrast, is as clear about what he won’t do as what he will, having learned the lessons of the Rudd-Gillard era.

Some similarities exist, however. Neither leader is particularly flashy and both can be clumsy communicators. Both are centrist leaders who frustrate members of their own party through a slow and methodical approach to governing.

In what might have been the last major policy plan of his short premiership, Starmer said earlier this month the UK would follow Australia and ban under-16s from social media sites. Albanese has highlighted countries overseas following Australia as a sign of success for the plan, even if expert assessments of its efficacy are mixed. In parliament on Thursday, Albanese signalled the government planned more steps to rein in social media.

Starmer struggled with the rising threat of Reform UK and Nigel Farage, as well as the lingering damage of Brexit. For Albanese, the threat is a surge in support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Albanese’s main response is relentless promotion of Labor policies he says will make people’s lives better. This week he offered a more pointed critique of One Nation, lumping them in with the Coalition as a trio of rightwing blockers, under the opposition leader, Angus Taylor.

Pollster and commentator Tony Barry said both Starmer and former Conservative PM Boris Johnson won record majorities after promising major change. But neither could provide it and paid a price for perceived broken promises and the protracted economic insecurity felt by many voters.

Barry said the lesson for Albanese from Starmer’s downfall is to give voters real change, not just claim it.

“With the One Nation monster now coming after Labor, Albanese knows that in an attention economy the cash register never lies and that will have the most influence on his political fortunes,” he said.

Burnham and Albanese might have more in common. Both joined their party at age 15, worked as staffers and became career politicians. Both men made previous unsuccessful runs at the leadership, before taking on the top job in tough times.

In Liverpool last year, Albanese said his “mate” Starmer needed time, calling it “the asset every progressive leader in every positive and ambitious government wishes they had more of”.

Two years out from his attempt at another election victory, Albanese will hope the Labor bicycle stays upright and time stays on his side.

Tom McIlroy is Guardian Australia’s political editor