Time is running out to discover the real Starmer
New Year, new New Labour. That seems Britain’s likely fate in the general election that must be held before Christmas. As 2024 begins, it seems surprising that we still know so little about the man who, in less than 12 months’ time, will probably be our prime minister.
After all, we shall by then have had more than four years to get to know Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader. In the past half-century, only three people have become prime minister for the first time after leading the Opposition. These are Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and David Cameron. By the time, they won, all of them had made a strong impression on the public.
And all of them knew they had to. Mrs Thatcher presented herself as the resolute housewife, restoring the country after years of decadent male leadership. Blair was the non-tribal, fresh face who proved Labour wanted to help everyone. Cameron was the centrist, kind-hearted, optimistic.
All these leaders succeeded, although Cameron’s image, being less clearly identifiable than that of the other two, won correspondingly weaker electoral endorsement.
Sir Keir has not put himself about in this manner. He is more than 10 years older than his predecessors were at the time of their first victories. Perhaps that makes him more self-conscious about painting himself as the future. He gives away very little. What do we know of him?
Respectable, southern, middleclass, polite, serious. Fine, but nothing distinctive. “There is always power in that word ‘hope’,” said Sir Keir in his New Year message, but there was not much power in the way he delivered it. His promise – “most of all”, he says – is to “renew our politics”. There speaks a professional politician. It is our country, much more than our politics, that voters want renewed: we have quite enough politics.
Friends of mine who know Sir Keir well speak highly of him. They admire his commitment and intelligence, and insist what good company he is – easy, conversible, interesting, “real”. They are puzzled that none of this is conveyed in his public presentation. They believe that if voters knew him better, they would like him more.
Where is the good joke, the arresting phrase, the memorable photo, the confessional moment? Where, indeed, is the human face? Even Sir Keir’s own face, though pleasant and well- proportioned, somehow discloses nothing.
The veteran Labour MP, Jon Cruddas, who admittedly comes from further Left in the party, calls him “elusive”. Some Blairites, even though they have now persuaded Sir Keir to follow a Blairite electoral strategy, complain of a man who is closed in upon himself.
Obviously, there are dangers in a bolder approach. We in the media thrive on “gaffes”, especially as an election approaches. Labour remains scarred by how these damaged its never-pm Neil Kinnock. Besides, the polls suggest that Labour is doing just fine by keeping its collective head down and letting the Tories self-destruct.
But I remain unconvinced. A change candidate must himself want change and look like change. Sir Keir radiates disapproval of the Conservatives, but not much impatience to get on and improve things himself. He has the air more of a politician who becomes leader while in government, rather than of one leading the great fightback from the Opposition benches.
Why his reticence? There is not the slightest evidence that he is hiding any scandal. My hunch, however, is that he is a little embarrassed by his own views. He is the socialist equivalent of patrician Tories in modern times. Believing in aristocratic values in a democratic age, they avoided saying what they really thought. This made them weak leaders. Sir Keir’s version of this problem is his long career as a human rights lawyer. Whatever may be said for human rights law in principal, as currently practised it is very frequently anti-democratic. It constantly tries to elevate an international judicial system above the wishes of national electorates. It takes pride in causes that the masses tend to dislike. Sir Keir feels that pride but knows he must not express it. He is a political leader inhibited by his inner beliefs. Voters won’t be pleased if they find this out.
The Cerne Abbas Giant, carved
and chalked on a Dorset hillside, has attracted interest for centuries. This is not surprising, since he is 180ft high, and his origins remain obscure. Popular attention has focused on his phallus, which is 36ft long (or rather, high). There has never been agreement about who he is.
Suggestions include the figure of Cerne’s last abbot before the Reformation; Holles, the Cromwellian MP of the Civil War era; a Romanobritish deity; the Celtic god Nodens. In 2021, a Norwegian academic, Dr Thomas Morcom, decided the giant was St Eadwold, a Saxon princehermit. In this he was backed up by an Oxford don, Dr Helen Gittos.
Now, however, the learned pair seem to have revised their view. In a joint article in the journal Speculum,
they argue that the Giant is in fact the classical hero Hercules, and was only “reinterpeted” as St Eadwold later. As a being of prodigious strength, he provided a suitable landmark for the muster of the Saxon armies. His Herculean club – the main clue – is over four times bigger than the phallus.
I cannot judge who is right. But it is an interesting reflection on human nature to think that centuries of speculation may have been wasted by staring at the wrong protuberance.