Shallow Sir Keir is taking voters for fools
THERE was a touch of the fervent television evangelist about Sir Keir Starmer as he addressed the Labour conference.
Eyes gleaming, voice rising to a crescendo, he offered the faithful a glimpse of the promised land that awaited Britain should his party win power.
And oh, the wonders he described! A future free from anxiety. An end to the age of insecurity. Fixing tomorrow’s challenges, today. A decade of national renewal.
Echoing Rishi Sunak’s diagnosis of the country’s ills during last week’s Tory shindig, Sir Keir said this would require ‘an entirely new approach to politics’. One that he bizarrely called: ‘Mission Government.’
But what exactly does it mean? And while the Labour leader left the country with no reason to doubt his seriousness of vision, rather less clear was how that vision would be achieved.
To be fair to Sir Keir, this was one of his best speeches. But despite deserving credit for dragging his party back to the centre, it shouldn’t be forgotten he campaigned enthusiastically to inflict the catastrophe of a Jeremy Corbyn premiership on Britain.
Labour has barely needed to make a positive case to the electorate to secure a large – though diminishing – lead in the polls. It has capitalised on anger at the Tories’ own ineptitude and internal battles.
But with an election in the offing, voters deserve to know in specific detail how Labour would change their lives for the better.
Dispiritingly, Sir Keir’s speech – long on rhetoric, but woefully short on substance – left them little wiser.
His blueprint for the UK involves a better NHS, safer streets, more opportunities for people and cleaner, green energy. But who’s not in favour of those things!
The only new policy was to re-designate large areas of green belt land as ‘grey belt’, as part of plans to construct 1.5million homes in five years, including the ‘next generation’ of towns. But countryside campaigners warn this risks an explosion in urban sprawl.
His vow to ‘speed ahead’ with net zero, reversing Mr Sunak’s more proportionate approach, might have won plaudits from ecoactivists, but it would place a huge financial burden on millions of ordinary families.
What was most significant about Sir Keir’s speech was not what it said but what it didn’t. Notably, he didn’t mention the small boats crisis and record levels of legal migration – despite voters clamouring for a crackdown. We know why. Sir Keir is a paidup member of the open borders brigade.
Nor did he have anything to say on tax, his plans for Brexit, how he’d deal with striking public sector workers, or wokery.
Perhaps he thinks the safest course of action is to stay silent on controversial issues so there is less to attack. But it is cowardly.
In his speech, Sir Keir attacked Mr Sunak and the Tories for being the ‘shallow men and women of Westminster’.
By refusing to flesh out his agenda for power, he has proved he has no greater depth himself.