The Labour leader needs to say what is wrong with the country, but people need to know how he will make things better, says Guardian columnist Andy Beckett
‘Whether a switch to slow politics has long-term appeal to an electorate that has got used to manic governments is something we have yet to find out.’‘Whether a switch to slow politics has long-term appeal to an electorate that has got used to manic governments is something we have yet to find out.
Then there is the question of communication. How good is the opposition leader, and their candidates and activists, at making change sound appealing? Under the careful, conscientious, Labour seems to offer a welcome shift from the Tories’ slapdash and reckless rule. But whether such a switch to what you could call slow politics has long-term appeal to an electorate that has got used to manic governments is something we have yet to find out.
The last time Labour had the exciting but anxious experience of campaigning as the change party against a stale and unpopular government in a country that had largely forgotten how centre-left rule felt was during the 1997 election.
Can the same be said of Starmer’s party? He has got good at making speeches about the country’s “chaos” and “decline” under the Tories, at persuasively laying out what has gone wrong with our public services, privatised utilities and standard of living. Despite his lingering stiffness as a communicator, he’s become more effective at channelling voters’ dissatisfaction.
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