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Keir Starmer’s moment has come: he mustn’t waste it

As Boris Johnson chants after the “Partygate” accusations in Downing Street, Keir Starmer’s Labor party is enjoying a healthy lead in the public opinion polls.

Immediately Starmer, who had struggled for attention most of the time at the top, was seen as the likely winner. In his New Year’s speech, delivered earlier this month, he praised Labour’s election-winning leaders, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. Commentators note that his focus on the party’s trio of winners shows he is so resolute on victory. Ultimately, it is implied, he is setting his path.

Of course, Starmer made the correct point in his conference speech as leader in 2020, but that is virtual, Covid is raging and the next election is a long way off. miles away. Johnson commands nearly all of the political attention and few pay attention to Starmer’s references.

Even so, a midterm poll leading the way for opposition Labor is no guarantee of election success. Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband prefer older people and neither of them became prime ministers. Apparently Starmer was looking to avoid that fate. He could get some limited signals from the only two postwar Labor leaders to win from the opposition: Wilson and Blair.

Despite radically different characters, both politicians framed their big pre-election arguments with apolitical caution. In the build-up to the election of 1964, Wilson developed “modernization” as his theme, with a focus on “white heat technology“. Blair also pledged to “modernize” in 1997. Both created the boundary between the parties as “competent and incompetent”.

These are the safest advocacy topics. Who supports the incompetent? Apparently Starmer is currently on the same course. In his speech, he declared his three guiding principles “security, prosperity and respect”.

Wilson and Blair also tap into the public perception of tired, long-serving Conservative governments tormented by false accusations. Sound familiar? Amid various scandals in 1962, when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of Tory launched a vast cabinet reshuffle dubbed “the night of the long knives,” said Wilson, the rising star of the opposition. established, declared: “The Prime Minister has fired half of his cabinet. . . . Half wrong”.

Both leaders deployed intelligence as a political weapon. Despite having less track record as a performer, Starmer was effective in questions from the prime minister this week, breaking down Johnson’s communicated “apology” regarding the gathering. practice at the No. 10 garden, which he admitted to attending in May 2020, despite the heavy Covid restrictions.

For the opposition Labor leaders, this is an easy one – declaring non-aggressive topics while beating besieged prime ministers. The challenge is to make their handpicked large themes interesting.

Being an effective opposition leader is an art. They cannot be judged by policy implementation because they are not in the government. Instead, they must appear to be in control of their future through words and deeds. That means being thorough as well as safe. This applies all the more to Starmer, given the monumental challenges that always exist in the next election, from the aftermath of the pandemic to climate change – let’s not forget Brexit.

Above all, the winners of the election stand out for their differences. For the likes of Wilson, Blair or Margaret Thatcher, there is no such thing as a never-ending comparison to their predecessors. Indeed, Blair broke with the past. His party became “New” by name.

Starmer must act in ways that ensure this is one of the last articles in which great Labor figures of the past are cited in relation to his leadership. He needs to be original and different in his newly elevated position on the political stage, looking ahead without being defined or held back by any episode of his turbulent past. wind of his party.

The writer is the author ofPrime Ministers we’ve never had: Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn’

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