Labour exchange

Sir Keir Starmer has won the Labour leadership race in a landslide and, in some ways, is quite a lucky man. A few weeks ago, the job was nothing but a poisoned chalice; Labour had suffered its worst electoral performance since 1935 and the Tories were riding high thanks to Brexit. Now the coronavirus has completely changed the political conversation. The Government has enjoyed a bounce as the nation rallies around, but the future is uncertain. Everything that seemed obvious about British politics and set in stone only last month is now up in the air again.

On the other hand, a leopard doesn’t change its spots, and Sir Keir’s victory still represents the triumph of the party’s Left. He’s not as radical as Jeremy Corbyn (few could be), but he is another Left-wing Londoner and, unlike his predecessor, a passionate Remainer who will, no doubt, use this crisis as a pretext to demand that Britain back out of Brexit. His policies were deliberately vague, but he did nothing to indicate that he is the sort of transformative, Blair-like centrist the party needs. Lisa Nandy came a bit closer to offering that agenda and placed a distant third in the contest. Sir Keir was really embraced as a safe pair of hands by a party that can’t let go of its ideology but is nevertheless tired of losing.

He did, however, start with two sensible steps. First, he acknowledged that Labour had been tainted by the “stain” of anti-Semitism and pledged to “tear out this poison by its roots”. Secondly, he promised to “work constructively” with Boris Johnson during the emergency. The last thing Britain needs is Punch and Judy politics. Constructive engagement – if it is genuinely forthcoming – would be far more useful.