Opinion: Thursday’s Local Elections should beckon a new Prime Minister: Enter Al Carns
- Dan Heley
- May 4
- 3 min read
By Dan Heley (Editor)
Local elections across North Somerset won’t take place until May 2027, but the council areas up for grabs this Thursday will be a litmus test for where the wind is blowing here in Weston-super-Mare.
There’s a difference between a bad night and a turning point. When Thursday’s local elections deliver the kind of losses many in Westminster are bracing for, Keir Starmer won’t just be facing a downturn in the polls—he’ll be facing this fundamental fact even more loudly; his leadership does not have the energy, clarity, and conviction to carry Labour into a general election.
For months now, Starmer’s approach has been defined by caution. That made sense in the aftermath of internal party turmoil: stabilise, reassure, detoxify the brand. But politics doesn’t reward caution indefinitely.
At some point, voters start asking what you actually stand for, not just what you stand against.
And too often, Labour under Starmer has felt like a party carefully managing risk rather than confidently shaping the future.
When these elections confirm that perception, that simply “staying the course” is the riskiest move of all.
Political momentum is fragile. Once voters decide a leader lacks it, it rarely comes back.
That’s why the conversation shouldn’t be about whether Starmer can ride out a bad result—it should be about the fact Labour needs a reset. And when it does, Al Carns offers a strikingly different kind of leadership.
Carns is not a polished Westminster operator. In fact, that’s precisely the point. He spent 24 years in the Royal Marines, with much is his time spent in special forces, his service history still all but locked away.
Rising from a teenage recruit to the rank of colonel—a trajectory that required not just competence, but sustained leadership under pressure.
This isn’t theoretical leadership honed in committee rooms; it’s leadership forged in environments where decisions carry immediate, real-world consequences.
His record in Afghanistan alone sets him apart. Carns completed multiple frontline tours and was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry, later receiving both an OBE and a Distinguished Service Order—a rare combination that marks him out as one of the most decorated figures to enter Parliament in recent years.
These honours aren’t ceremonial; they reflect repeated instances of leadership in high-stakes, high-risk situations.
Crucially, his experience isn’t limited to the battlefield. Carns also served as a military adviser to Defence Secretaries, operating at the intersection of strategy and government decision-making. That matters. It means he understands not just how to act, but how policy is shaped at the highest levels—something many “outsider” candidates lack.
His move into politics was anything but gradual. He left the military on the cusp of further promotion to stand for Parliament in 2024, won his seat, and was almost immediately appointed to a defence ministerial role, quickly rising to Minister for the Armed Forces.
That rapid ascent suggests he is already viewed within Labour as a serious figure, not a novelty.
There’s also a broader political story in his background.
Raised in Aberdeen and state-educated, Carns has framed his journey as one of social mobility—someone who benefited from public institutions and now wants to strengthen them.
In an era when many voters feel disconnected from career politicians, that kind of narrative carries weight.
Of course, there are risks.
Carns lacks the long résumé in domestic policy and economic management that typically defines party leaders.
Replacing a leader after what feels like years Prime Minister’s coming and going through revolving doors
is always a gamble.
But sticking with a leadership that no longer connects with voters is more than a gamble, it’s a crash in slow motion.
What Carns represents is not just a different personality, but a different mode of leadership: more direct, more decisive, less encumbered by the cautious incrementalism that has come to define Starmer’s tenure.
Whether that’s enough is an open question. But it is at least a clear alternative—and right now, clarity is exactly what Labour and the government seems to be missing.
When Thursday’s results confirm that the governments direction has disappeared, rather than driving events, difficult decisions will have to follow.
Starmer’s achievement in stabilising Labour after the Corbyn era shouldn’t be dismissed. But stabilising is not the same as winning. And winning is far more than forming a government.
At some point, a party has to decide whether it wants to play safe—or actually take the country somewhere.
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