With Andy Burnham duly elected as MP for Makerfield, Keir Starmer is now a lame duck. Burnham is due to become Prime Minister in a “coronation” on 20th July. He is already beginning to lay out his plans for government and speculation is currently turning to who will makeup his cabinet.

I suspect Keir Starmer’s premiership will be remembered for one enduring trait: the U-turn. It is hard to think of anything that marked his leadership more than bold statements of intent followed by an about turn in response to some outcry or other. Even his resignation – an absolute statement that he would not be standing down and would fight any leadership contest – turned into a U-turn as he duly resigned and agreed to a transition of power. Even since his resignation announcement, Keir has managed to U-turn on policy, insisting he would not allow pubs to stay open for England’s 1am kick-off against Mexico before duly going back on it and giving way.

I suppose this gives us an opportunity to evaluate the U-turn more generally. On the one hand, if you like strong leadership with a clear sense of direction, U-turns rather undermine that. At the same time, if you really dislike a particular policy direction for whatever reason, U-turns are quite welcome. I suppose what most people want is a strong government who are clear what they want to do and that everybody is happy with them doing it. But few governments will be that for most of the time.

For one thing, you can’t please all the people all the time. Whatever you do there will be some outcry from someone. Every policy has winners and losers, and the losers generally don’t like the ways they lose out. Some policies will have a big backlash because, despite popular support, a minority have a significant voice and are prepared to use it. Then there are the policies that are ideologically opposed because they do not share your ideological outlook, you will always get backlash from ideological opponents. Even the nature of our politics, the opposition tends to oppose for its own sake – even when they find plans credible and helpful (and then repackage them as their own) – because to win power you have to suggest the government are poor and you would be better. Outcries will always come.

But sometimes, though the medicine may be hard to take, certain policies need to be pushed through. Sometimes, the outcry – whilst understandable and coming from those who will feel negative impact – needs to be ignored because it is impeding much larger gains and benefits that cannot be gotten any other way. This is politics. Choices must be made. If we are ever to make progress, conserve the best of what already is or enhance what already is to make it better still, sometimes outcries need to be ignored. Nimbyism – whilst not always wrong in what it is seeking to protect – has a lot to answer for.

But with that said, sometimes a policy is not completely stupid – it has some merit and will serve some purpose – but the cost is simply too great. When you get an outcry of that sort, U-turns make a lot of sense. Who wants a leader who will obstinately plough on with their plans when everybody can see they will be a total disaster? If you have a policy dud on your hands – and every government will at some point – surely you want the leader who recognises it and says, ‘you know what, we’re not going to do that after all’. U-turns are painted as weak and wrong when, a lot of the time, they are a result of listening and learning. Nobody is omni-competent and it takes strong leadership to listen, admit a mistake and determine not to push a policy that creates so many losers it isn’t worth persuing.

Most people want strong leadership that generally gets things right, but who are willing to listen and change course when they have gotten something wrong. Of course, the balance wants to be weighted on the former and not the latter to be considered a good leadership – responding with U-turns at every outcry means you may as well have a direct democracy and outsource every policy to the people. Starmer’s problem wasn’t that he listened and changed course, it was that he seemed to do so consistently. This made his government seem weak, gave no confidence on policy direction and often made them look chaotic.

I think there are lessons for church leaders here too. The same dynamics (to a lesser or greater degree) are at play. Most people want clear sighted leadership in the church. Leadership that knows where it is going, what it is doing and why it is doing it. But, as with anything, when fallible leaders get things wrong, people want them to listen, admit it and change course. As with politics, if all the church leadership do is row back on every plan in response to pushback, there comes a point where it doesn’t seem like they are leading anything at all but responding to the whims of their members.