Courage and the Labour Party (4)

I have just read Steve Richards' characteristically perceptive piece in 'Prospect' magazine which criticises Starmer's recent embrace of patriotism as a transparently obvious piece of political opportunism which offends both many in his party and those voters whom he wants to attract. I concur with his argument. I also agree that one essential skill of politics is that you have to have the art which conceals art. By making it so obvious that patriotism was going to be his new strategy, he has defeated his object before he even started. Attentive voters will think to themselves: 'Oh, the Labour Party has chosen to talk about its patriotic credentials because it is obsessed with differentiating itself from Corbyn, and wants to attract voters like me.' This thought only confirms voters' cynical assumptions about politicians, and bolsters Johnson, whose unique selling proposition has always been that he is not a 'typical politician' and is therefore more 'authentic', even when the authenticity is obviously contrived.

Starmer should learn from this mistake, dump the 'patriotic' strategy, use my suggestions in my previous blogposts to sharpen his opposition to the government, then develop and repeat a few signature policies which communicate the general direction in which he wants to take the Labour Party. These policies need, however, to be connected by a common theme: recovery from the pandemic/repairing the damage of austerity. An overarching theme or slogan (akin to Wilson's 'white heat of the technological revolution') could then be used to embed this in people's minds. Starmer claims to admire Wilson ; he could start by taking a leaf out of his book.

Another idea. As Steve Richards reminds us in his excellent book, 'The Prime Ministers: reflections on leadership from Wilson to Johnson' (2020), Harold Wilson deliberately cultivated a sense of humour, which he often used to devastating effect. Starmer should do the same.