The Politics Thread.

Which is not to say they’re not deliverable. Underestimating Keir Starmer is a big mistake, made all too often. He’s not where he is, in every respect, by accident. In some of his recent speeches he’s spoken about being weary of how Westminster works. That it’s all talk, and no one actually does anything. He is clearly an executive-minded person; the days of government-by-columnist are, pleasingly, over.

He had made enormous progress, but the next phase is by far the hardest. He still has to talk his way in to 10 Downing Street, via the voters’ affections; and he’s still got a long way to go to get there.

We're a year out from a GE. I can't see the Tories getting in now. Yet a great deal of support for Labour is by default, a case of they're the next taxi off the rank. Peck is making the point here that voters may not have great affection for Labour ... and it's a fair point. Many like you are saying that Labour's right to keep it's powder dry ... but it's not entirely true that they have. For example they went into quite a bit of detail about the future of the UK via Gordon Brown's constitutional review. I was personally massively disappointed by it. In other aspects he's dismissed really important stuff. He was interviewed by Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart for their podcast. They asked him about the way that Johnson abused the "good chaps" model of Parliamentary convention and if constitutional reforms were necessary to prevent this from happening. Starmer's response was basically to say that Labour were the "good chaps" the UK needs and that no reform was really needed. Again, I was hugely disappointed. I get that Labour are in election mode and don't want to give away policy so as to give the Tories a head start on them, but their pronouncements have left me cold. Grud yes, I want the Tories out and right now the only answer to that is for England to return a Labour majority. But this is where I agree with Peck - I've no great affection for Labour. I don't feel happy with the "vote for us, we'll do progressive stuff" approach. I don't find it reassuring. The state Britain is in is absolutely dreadful. "Trust us, we're the good guys" doesn't cut it for me. Right now "we're not the Tories" will be good enough but my goodness, there are seismic fractures running through the UK and folk all over Britain deserve a State that functions. I just wish I felt that there was some substance behind Labour.