Keir Starmer - Get a Grip!

Image sourced from politico.eu

​By Tom Creswell

I like Keir Starmer. There - I said it! 
 
He’s a man rooted in his convictions. His dad was a tool-maker and his mum an NHS nurse who suffered from the horrors of Still’s disease all her life. Before becoming an MP in 2016 he worked hard in the legal profession, fighting to abolish the death penalty around the world, and when he became Labour leader, he took sharp aim at the anti-Semitism which had infected the party.
 
Starmer’s methodical and analytical approach to politics is exactly the tonic to Boris Johnson’s brand of Tory - a bunch of hollow, ideological zealots with very little substance behind their slogans. He can take them apart, slogan by slogan, and expose them for the dire lack of actual policies they have for improvement in Britain.
 
‘Global Britain’ - Why slash international aid to the world’s poorest countries and hoard vaccines which prevent a truly global recovery? Why bargain down G7 talks on a global minimum rate of corporation tax on multinationals to 15% when the US had proposed 21%?
 
‘Build Back Better’ – How can we build back better when the Government refuses to tackle the climate crisis, far preferring to swing its weight behind culture wars which sew division and bigotry.
 
‘Level Up’ – The Conservatives have been in government for eleven years, cutting away at public expenditure. Now you want to talk about levelling up? Give me a break…
 
Yet over Starmer there looms a great shadow: the polls. Labour is still behind the Tories, even in the midst of an energy crisis, even after the pandemic’s death toll reaches 160,000, even when the government is riddled with corruption and sleaze, handing out contracts to Conservative Party donors.
 
So, what to do?
 
Firstly, Starmer must get a grip on his party. Those that say internal party issues don’t matter to the wider public are partially correct. The public don’t care about the specifics of whether Labour Against the Witchhunt are proscribed or whether it takes a nomination threshold of 10% or 20% of MPs to become Labour leader. What the public does care about, is whether the leader of a party can command their troops and stamp out bigotry in the ranks. In short, Keir Starmer needs to take the gloves off now, two and a half years prior to the election, before it’s too late. Much akin to Kinnock he must embark on a clamp down in the party which focuses on expelling those who are actively hindering the party’s assent to government. Those in the party who don’t want Keir Starmer to be Prime Minister, those who shout and scream at him during his Conference speech, should not have a stake in the Labour Party as led by Keir Starmer. Why this viewpoint is seen as controversial by some commentators is beyond me. The actions which should be taken shouldn’t be seen as regression or barbarism, but rather as modernisation, as revitalisation. Neither need they be entirely factional. Taking a stand against bigotry wherever it emerges in the party, whether the person in question be of your exact political persuasion or not, presents a progressive vision which is infectious. Removing anti-Semites and transphobes, whichever wing of the party they hail from, is always right.
 
It will be a painful process, but an entirely necessary one.
 
Secondly, Starmer has to get his brand out there. Not an easy task when up against the clown of the media circus that is Boris Johnson. Johnson is undeniably more charismatic than Starmer, far more caricatured, recognisable, and rambunctious than the Labour leader. It would be a losing battle for Starmer to try to rival the Prime Minister in theatricals, and a waste of time. Instead, he must sharpen up his attacks. They must become more brutal on the Tory’s record for incompetence, and, most crucially of all, set out an alternative vision for a better Britain. 
 
And this means that people need to know who’s going to deliver the policies to make life in Britain fairer, who Keir Starmer is, who Angela Rayner is, who Rachel Reeves is (the Shadow Chancellor, for those of you who are wondering). I don’t add those brackets to patronise - one of the biggest problems Starmer faces is in the comms department. When talking to some of the most politically literate people I know, the mention of one of Starmer’s closest colleagues such as Rachel Reeves (once more for those at the back, she’s the Shadow Chancellor) can be met with a confused eyebrow furrow. By contrast, everyone knows Dishy Rishi, the cash swinging chancellor who plays fast and loose with furlough and rises in National Insurance. This is a major problem for Labour.
 
And so, in the same way that Keir Starmer must get a grip on his party, he must also get a grip on his communication, on his media image, on his messaging. He and his team must go out into communities affected by Tory policies, speak directly to people who have suffered from Tory cuts, who have been left behind by government after government, and devise a policy platform based on what will make their lives better. In doing that he will hit two birds with one stone: he will become more well known in the places where he must do the most to win votes, and, in 2024, he will be able provide a manifesto which is directly linked to real people’s ambitions for their lives.
 
So, Keir Starmer, get a grip. I really want you to win in Westminster, but you have to do the hard graft now, before you’re put on an election footing. Get a grip of your party; get a grip on your messaging; and get a grip on government. Good luck.