An unlikely mood has descended on Labour MPs, officials and ministers as they head to Liverpool for the first party conference of an incoming Labour government since 1997. They secured a 174-seat landslide majority little more than two months ago, but the words being used to describe the atmosphere are not like they were 27 years ago. Some characterise it as surreal; others are more despairing that a series of “unforced errors” have robbed Keir Starmer and his team of their political honeymoon.

“What should have been a victory parade, and the height of the administration’s powers, has already stalled,” said one MP. “Hardly the most auspicious of starts for the next five years.”

Gripes over Starmer’s odd predilection for free trips and trousers – a habit now jettisoned in the wake of stories about the freebies he, his wife and his top team have taken – have collided with complaints about the power and pay of his chief of staff, Sue Gray. The complaints are gnawing away at the prime minister’s self-styled reputation as the person to clean up politics after years of Tory sleaze.

“It’s just further confirmation of how politically naive Starmer is,” said an MP. “I have no doubt whatsoever that people like [New Labour architect Peter] Mandelson understand this and would probably have advised him not to go down the ‘white knight in anti-sleaze armour’ route.”

Yet there is a suspicion that these complaints have been driven by a bigger question that many MPs hope Starmer will begin to answer this week on Merseyside: having secured power, what is it actually for?

For many, the rows over freebies and the pay of his team are a symptom of the fact that he has not yet articulated a political narrative big enough to fill the vacuum.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. Labour aides have been telling people that there will be record numbers at conference this year, with about 20,000 people, delegates and others, descending on Liverpool. For months, Starmer’s officials had been planning how to strike the balance between celebration and getting on with the job of mending the country after 14 years of the Tories.

“I don’t think it’s very happy in there,” said one insider, referring to Downing Street. “[Starmer] will be being pushed to lean into something more positive.” There are plans to make clear all the things that the government has already achieved in its short time in office – a manoeuvre also used by the party in 1997. But the sense that the prime minister needs to set a stronger sense of direction will be underlined by the worrying polling data now emerging.

Following the complaints about freebies, the latest Opinium polling for the Observer shows cause for concern. Apart from a staggering fall in Starmer’s personal approval ratings – down 45 points since July – Labour has declined on other polling measures. It has fallen 17 points when voters are asked if Labour has “similar views to my own”; 20 points on whether it has “the nation’s best interests at heart”, and 29 points on whether it is “in touch with ordinary people”.

For some, this is the inevitable noise that comes with taking power at such a difficult moment for the public finances, with a tax-raising budget on the horizon. Others, however, see it as an early warning that Labour’s support in the country started at a low base, despite the huge win, and that a stronger sense of direction is needed.

However, it is a pressure Starmer understands. “We had to make it clear what the inheritance was,” he says in his interview this week with the Observer. “But I think … we do need to say why, and explain and set out and describe the better Britain that this ladders up to, if we get the original decisions right.”

The problem for Starmer this week is that if he fails to take a strong lead in showing his government’s next steps, there are a few powerful figures in the union movement itching to give him a shove in a direction of their choosing. While the major Labour-affiliated unions have been incredibly obedient both during the election campaign and in the new government’s early months – kept onside with the promise of a workers’ rights overhaul and the end of anti-strike legislation – some, such as Unite, are now beginning to campaign in earnest against Labour’s cut to winter fuel payments for most pensioners.

It is also working with others on a major conference confrontation on austerity. Its motion will condemn the winter fuel payment policy and call for a U-turn, and demand a wealth tax on top earners and changes to the fiscal rules to allow more borrowing and investment. Union sources said they were confident it would reach a vote in some form on Monday.

Even allies of Starmer have become critical of what they fear is the “Osborne playbook” being deployed by the Treasury team. Much more important to them is prioritising the missions Starmer set out before the election, aimed at restoring the NHS, boosting economic growth and pursuing clean power.

The left of the party is diminished, but some of its senior figures are setting out a narrative that chimes with a wider audience. John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor who was suspended from the party for voting against the government on an amendment calling on it to scrap the two-child limit on benefits, is among them. He believes that without more optimism and ambition from Labour, the beneficiary will be Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

“It’s one of the shortest honeymoons I’ve ever seen in politics,” he said. “It was a toxic inheritance and people understand that. People want us to say how bad it is, of course, but then tell us how we’re going to get through it – give us a bit of hope.

“I was worried that if we didn’t deliver by midterm, people would become disillusioned and it would be the far right that benefits from it, as we’ve seen in France and Germany. If we’re threatened with an austerity budget, it just feeds Reform and Farage and all the rest. That’s my worry.”

An MP still inside the parliamentary fold agrees. “Reform thrives in chaos,” they said.