I don’t have any skin in the game.
I voted Labour all my life – between 1992 and 2019. I’ve never voted Tory.
A small confession. I’ve never met Sir Keir Starmer. I have seen him sitting in the audience as he was supporting the then newly crowned leader of Labour, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband is somebody I could happily have as Prime Minister. I remember David Cameron’s Twitter jibe, now infamous:
That was of course he set in motion a chain of events that led to the referendum, causing Britain to exit out of the European Union. It is widely thought that Nigel Farage can be thanked for precipitating this. He of course is not especially happy how Brexit has gone now. And who can blame him, with fishermen losing business, pig culls, huge loss trade, marked shortages in certain sectors of the economy, to name but a few. Luckily for the current Conservative government there are voters who are desperate for Brexit to work, like they are for the Tories to reverse years of Tory austerity under the guise of ‘levelling up’.
I understand Rachel Reeves’ optimism about a possible Labour victory. I also have experienced this illusion of ‘one last heave’ – where one final push will guarantee a Labour government.
But having followed this for years, I don’t think we’re there yet.
There are a number of reasons.
If “Captain Hindsight” can only be offering ‘constructive criticism’ while continuously to carp irritatingly like a back seat driver, “General Sit on the Fence” hardly inspires confidence with his endless streams of boosterism and lies.
A rosette on a Starmer cannot explain the lack of input into policy on Brexit, coronavirus or even the reorganisation of NHS and social care. Starmer and the whole shadow cabinet are lost in action. Nowhere to be seen.
They indeed, like Hilary Benn was so obsessive about, seem to be more focused on winning power than turning heads with policy. The brut force of Michael Foot intellectually, or indeed Enoch Powell, offered something quite unpalatable politically – though in defense of Foot, he never wore a donkey jacket and much of his 1983 offering has now been assimilated into current policy.
I want a Labour government, more than a Johnson one.
I don’t think people are keeping diaries about what they think of their civil liberties, the vaccination programme, or the battle of the dinghies.
But the step before the public vote for a Labour government is them endorsing a new Tory Party under someone like Liz Truss. I thought nobody would ever vote for Boris Johnson, but it turned out the media loved him, and that people had ‘factored in’ all his misfeasance.
Starmer would prefer to keep his mouth shut on environmental issues, or human rights, or policing, or housing.
But this policy of muscular silence is going nowhere. Nobody knows what he or Labour stands for, much that they find this current Government sleazy and a bit dodgy. It could be argued that Starmer has bus loaded in a lot of ‘serious people’ but I can’t name many of them apart from Yvette Cooper or Rachel Reeves who were instrumental in making my life hell for much of the 2010s for feeling guilty for being disabled.
The arithmetic is pointing to a solid SNP victory in Scotland, and it’s very hit or miss who will be the dominant party in England and Wales. Possibly Wales might save Starmer’s bacon, so to speak.
Dame Maureen and Dame Margaret are totally irrelevant to me.
Whilst the poll lead is welcome for Labour, I don’t think it is at all meaningful. John Rentoul, for all his brilliance, is badly wrong – or maybe it’s merely wishful thinking.
