The reshuffle, thought to have been deftly managed by Sue Gray, made a shadow cabinet heavy with stalwarts from the Blair-Brown era
I don’t know about other people but I really was hoping for more than a sequel to the Blair years. I mean I get they need experience but the Tories are on the ropes, the Centrists in the party have had 13 years to come up with new ideas…
And yet…?
Blair got elected. Blair stayed elected, and only stepped down after being ousted by the Labour Party membership.
Brown was popular with the Labour Party membership. Brown lost.
Corbyn was popular with the Labour Party membership. Corbyn lost.
A pragmatic Labour party that is actually electable, and that wins, is orders of magnitude better than a “pure” Labour party that loses.
Shouting about how you want to see NATO disbanded, how the Falklands should be given to Argentina, and how much you admire Hugo Chavez, is not electable.
Oh I would absolutely rather Starmer’s Labour than anything tory, but that’s not a very high bar. I never liked Corbyn, I thought he was a hypocritical arsehole at times, but I did like many of his policies and polling showed so did much of the populous when you took away party designation. So my hope was that Starmer would continue in the same vein as Corbyn but be a more electable individual
In court cases, ideally you save the crystallization of your argument for summing up, because if you reveal it too early on you give the opposing side the opportunity to rebut it.
I like to hope that’s Starmer’s strategy. If he says anything too exciting too far for an election, it gives the Tories an angle, and time to spin nonsense against him. But you can’t punch fog.
It’s a theory, and I hope you’re right. But there gas been no hint that he is doing anything like that at all