It is, in retrospect, quite funny to remember that, once upon a time, Keir Starmer was seen as the perfect antidote to Boris Johnson. The leadership contest of 2020 didn\u2019t make the Labour party feel like it was ready to get into power again anytime soon, but the QC did offer something specific.<\/p>\n
Britain had just decided to hand the Conservatives the majority of a generation and back then, it really felt like they would remain in power for a very, very long time. Still, some people quietly dared to hope. Surely voters would get bored of Johnson\u2019s shtick eventually, right? Surely, surely, the shine would wear off, and after that, an exhausted, irritated electorate would turn to someone who felt like the polar opposite of the buffoon they\u2019d once been charmed by?<\/p>\n
Really, this was Starmer\u2019s main strength. He was quite grey and a bit dull and even his supporters couldn\u2019t deny that. If anything, that\u2019s what they liked about him. Politics in 2020 had felt too exuberant for too long, and maybe the guy in the unremarkable suit and the unremarkable glasses could be just the right amount of boring.<\/p>\n
Obviously, we had no idea what was still coming for us back then. The coronavirus happened and then Liz Truss hit the country, and it\u2019s fair to say that the former was worse than the latter, but only marginally. Rishi Sunak acted as an interlude but it was already too late by then; people had stared into the slightly blank eyes of Keir Starmer and they\u2019d decided that they liked what they\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n
It did help that, at the time, we were told that the Labour party had a plan and it would be able to hit the ground running. There wouldn\u2019t be any drama anymore; no flouncing and no tawdry scandals, and overly flowery speeches with little policy legwork to back them up. Westminster was about to become profoundly uninteresting again, and that was a promise.<\/p>\n
Well, it was a lie. That\u2019s what it was. There was no plan at all and the election wasn\u2019t even two years ago yet and already we\u2019ve had so much drama, so much flouncing, so many tawdry scandals. Starmer may or may not go today and he may or may not go this week but whatever happens now, it\u2019s clear that his project has failed entirely.<\/p>\n
Perhaps worst of all is that he ended up recreating the mistakes of his true blue predecessors. He promoted people whom everyone knew would be a problem then acted like he was shocked when they turned out to be a problem. He and his government announced seemingly random and often unpopular policies with little to no pitch rolling.<\/p>\n
Mostly, it all felt like he didn\u2019t do much at all as the country sank further into despair, though Rishi Sunak, who came just before him, had the excuse of knowing he was about to be the last of his kind. What\u2019s Starmer\u2019s?<\/p>\n
An answer to that question probably can\u2019t be found right now, and so it\u2019s worth asking a different one, namely: what should his successor do differently? The answer is both simple and huge. Any prime minister hoping to actually lead and remain in power for longer than a few split seconds will need to be honest with the country.<\/p>\n
For too long, successive leaders have lied, either to themselves, to the electorate or to both \u2013 about Britain\u2019s place in the world, the scale of its problems, how vulnerable it was to other countries\u2019 whims, and what would need to be done in order for it to feel like a solid, optimistic, successful, forward-thinking place again.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been the topic of around a million books over the past few years \u2013 from Steve Richard\u2019s Turning Points to Michael Peel\u2019s What Everyone Knows About Britain and A. G. Hopkins\u2019s The Land Where Nothing Works \u2013 and yet their conclusions are yet to make it to No 10.<\/p>\n
Somehow everyone agrees that the country needs to change but no-one is ready to stand by those famous stairs, in front of Downing Street, and treat Britons like adults. Yes, taxes will probably have to go up. Yes, we need to spend money on infrastructure and it will cost a lot and it will take a long time to fix everything. Yes, reforming social care will also cost money, but it is worth doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, Britain cannot pretend it lives in a world that is unaffected by the war in Iran, or the madman gloating over the pond. Yes, the easiest way to get some economic growth would be to get closer to the EU again. No, the economy cannot thrive without immigration.<\/p>\n
All of those are basic facts and yet they are not being made in the political mainstream. Should it really be a surprise, then, that people keep falling for the brazenly easy solutions offered by cynical populists? Voters aren\u2019t stupid and they can tell when politicians aren\u2019t being entirely straight with them, and they can and will go elsewhere out of spite.<\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s sole strength was that he seemed rigorous, but in the end he proved to be as flimsy as the rest of them. There is no telling when he will go, and whether he will be replaced by Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband, Wes Streeting, or someone else entirely.<\/p>\n
But what must happen next is clear. After years of leaders hiding their heads either up in the clouds or down in the sand, Britain needs a prime minister ready to govern the country as it is, today, in the real world. Is that really so much to ask?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is, in retrospect, quite funny to remember that, once upon a time, Keir Starmer was seen as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,807,528,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-955128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-keir-starmer","14":"tag-labour-party","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116562470267212826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}