Britain Today
Ist es eigentlich von Bedeutung, wie Politiker aussehen? Unser Kolumnist macht sich da so seine Gedanken.
Colin Beaven takes a humorous look at Britain and the Brits
Along time ago, I was in London one Sunday and saw a man with a mask standing on the steps of the Cabinet Office. The mask was a caricature of Tony Blair, the prime minister at the time. It had a grotesque version of the famous Blair smile, with teeth so big, they made him look as if he’d been eating the keys of a piano. The man was shaking hands with the tourists and having his picture taken — not for money, just for fun. Blair won three elections for the Labour Party. If Labour had beaten Boris Johnson last December, we’d now have Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister — and I could have modelled myself on the man in the mask. I’d have entertained tourists, but without shaking hands, of course, because of Covid-19.
And I could have done so without a mask, to be honest — virus permitting. Apparently, I look like Jeremy Corbyn, as do lots of other old men here with silly grey beards who look permanently irritated. I once saw one getting off a train; there were gasps of recognition from the other passengers.
Except it wasn’t Jeremy Corbyn — just another lookalike. History is full of them. Stalin had doubles. Perhaps Kim Jong-un has them, too: Kim Jong-deux, Kim Jong-trois, quatre, cinq and so on.
With Jeremy Corbyn gone, the Labour Party now has a new leader: Sir Keir Starmer. It’s his job to oppose Boris Johnson. Surely, a piece of cake, you might think; after Bojo, Britain will want change. But politicians can easily slip on a banana skin, or score an own goal, or shoot themselves in the foot.
Political parties can, too. The Conservatives won the election in 2019, but they lost a lot of talent and experience in the process. Johnson’s pro-brexit dogma meant that colleagues who disagreed with him had to go, such as David Gauke, Dominic Grieve and Rory Stewart.
Philip Hammond also had to go. He was chancellor of the exchequer under Prime Minister Theresa May. By the way, he looks very much like her: slim, grey hair, quite pointed features. Was he working as her double or was she working as his?
As for Labour, Corbyn also lost talented and experienced colleagues after the Brexit vote. He’d already lost quite a lot of them when he became party leader. And he lost even more just before last year’s election.
And before Corbyn, the Labour Party had chosen Ed Miliband as leader in preference to his brother, David, who was foreign secretary under Gordon Brown. Electorally, it was probably a mistake.
It seems that, whatever the political rights and wrongs, you do need a leader who looks like a prime minister. On balance, Ed didn’t; David did. So did Blair, to begin with, until he began to have trouble with bananas, goals and weapons.
Does Sir Keir Starmer look like a PM? More importantly, can he convince The Sun newspaper that he does? Blair persuaded The Sun to support him in 1997 and promptly won his first election. Will The Sun shine on Sir Keir, too?