As this ex-MP left the Labour Party, another ex-MP joined—you guessed, a Tory. So Starmer’s right—Labour is the party of change. But it seems the change is merely one of personnel, there is no change proposed for the course of the ship of state nor will there be. There is one thing that is totally absent from Starmer’s so-called ‘retail offer,’ namely the word ‘hope.’ He and his acolytes have done everything they could possibly do to dampen any expectation of hope. This is what is called serious politics, which is to say you can’t make any real change if the system won’t allow you to, and of course you’re not prepared to challenge the system lest it puts a rocket up your backside a la Corbyn (who it has to be said wasn’t prepared for it). I wonder if this absence of hope will dampen support for Labour. When a certain cohort of voters used to say ‘they’re all the same’ I assumed that they meant politicians were merely in it for themselves. Now, with no distinct difference in party policies the accusation takes on a deeper significance.
Another aspect of Starmer’s self-assumed ‘change’ appeal is his repeated claim that he has changed the Labour Party, making ‘tough decisions.’ But, as highlighted by the Abbott case, and the wider context of parliamentary selections, old-style machine politics remains dominant. I am not surprised—Labour’s General Secretary David Evans dates from Margaret McDonagh’s day (when I worked for the party too) and New Labour was just finding its feet. The development of control freakery has mushroomed, accelerated by Starmer’s purge of the left after the JC blip, the ’left’ being those members who want to see actual as opposed to merely presentational change. Evans is very much flying below the radar and is keeping out of the public eye. Michael Crick seems to be one of the few journalists who is looking deeply into Labour’s machine politics. Such an inspection is long overdue.
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