DAN HODGES: KEIR’S BLOWN IT ALREADY

IN EARLY 2020, after another hard day on the Labour leadership election trail, Sir Keir Starmer and his campaign team retired to a hotel bar for a drink. As a couple of members wandered off to get some service, he turned to one of their colleagues and said: ‘You know, I don’t get politics. I don’t understand it. And I don’t really like it.’

Today, Labour’s annual conference opens in Brighton. The first in-person event of its kind since Starmer’s victory, the south coast gathering is already being billed as ‘make or break’ for Jeremy Corbyn’s successor.

It isn’t. Whatever he says, whatever he does, whatever rule changes he can or cannot force past increasingly disillusioned Labour MPs, union general secretaries and members is irrelevant. Keir Starmer is right. He doesn’t understand politics. He isn’t any good at politics. And as a result, he’s already blown it.

When he was elected Labour leader, Shadow Ministers expressed two hopes. The first was that Starmer would prove to be the new Tony Blair. Casting off the grim boilersuit of Corbynism, he would be embraced by a nation wearied by populism, and longing for the return of mature, statesmanlike governance.

Alternatively – and more realistically – they believed he could prove to be their Neil Kinnock. Rebuilding and repositioning the party in a way that would enable his own successor to take the final few steps back to power.

Keir Starmer is neither. He does not have Blair’s vision, empathy or

He doesn’t have the vision of Tony Blair or the acumen of Neil Kinnock

popular touch. Nor Kinnock’s acumen, guile or political wisdom. Which begs the question: Just what is the point of him?

At the end of the last week, he attempted to supply the answer. It was contained in a 12,216word Fabian pamphlet entitled The Road Ahead. And it did its job admirably. It did indeed tell us everything we need to know about Starmer. As his party enters a second decade out of government. As Labour seats with granite-hewn majorities continue to topple like ninepins. As he’s repeatedly bested in the polls by a Prime Minister who, on that very day, had stood at the podium of UN General Assembly and blathered on about Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy in his crusade against climate change.

As all of these things happened, Labour’s leader decided the best way to begin to reconnect with the lost voters of Hartlepool, Bolsover and Sedgefield was to pen an unreadable essay for a North-West London socialist think-tank formed in 1884.

Starmer’s allies claimed this was an attempt to answer the question: ‘What does Starmer actually believe in?’ But that’s not what’s troubling the British people. They know precisely what Starmer believes in. He believes in everything.

According to The Road Ahead, he believes in the private sector. But he also believes in a strong centralised state. He believes in unlocking the potential of the individual. But he also believes in collectivism and community empowerment. He believes in bold expressions of British patriotism. And in diversity, inclusion and internationalism, too.

Someone who’s worked with him told me: ‘When you’re with him, you can see his lawyer’s brain

working. Both sides of it are basically laying down legal papers. That’s how he makes decisions.’

The British people can see it as well. Where Boris exclaims, ‘I’ll be your champion!’, Starmer whispers, ‘I’ll be your brief. No win, no fee.’

His defenders claim he has been hamstrung by circumstance. That the pandemic robbed him of the opportunity to properly introduce himself to the voters.

But look what happened as soon as Covid finally began to recede. His first major intervention involved him hot-footing it over to the Fabians.

And the Covid crisis has also provided him with two major benefits. The first was that it prevented the Conservatives doing what they successfully did to Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband – negatively defining Labour’s leader almost as soon as they were elected. Friday’s Sky poll – showing 47 per cent of people think Starmer is weak, 43 per cent think he’s out of touch, and 39 per cent believe he’s boring – was all his own work.

The second benefit was that it gave him that precious political commodity – time. He had time to put a team in place and to assert his authority over his party. And time to take delivery of the bricks needed to build a new political project from the wreckage of Corbynism. But what has he done with it? His office had to be culled after a botched reshuffle attempt. Corbyn is still wandering around like Banquo’s ghost, half-in, half-out of the party he led to near-oblivion. And attempts to force through a change to Labour’s leadership rules have descended into acrimony and chaos.

On Thursday, I asked a senior official in one of the major unions what work Starmer and his team had done to bring their General Secretary on board with his reform plans. ‘He asked to have one meeting with them,’ they replied, ‘and as he was leaving, Starmer casually said over his shoulder, “Oh, by the way, what do you think about doing away with one member, one vote for leadership elections?”’

When Kinnock took on and destroyed Militant, he waited for the optimum moment, planned for it meticulously, then struck fast and hard. Starmer – who doesn’t appear to have lined up the Shadow Cabinet, his MPs or any other key stakeholders for his electoral college gambit – has struck at the Corbynites with all the skill and cunning of a coiled garden hose.

As one Shadow Minister told me: ‘Every time Keir’s team do something I have to remind myself their plan is only as good as their ability to execute it, and that’s almost always a s***show.’ This doesn’t mean Starmer’s chances of ever crossing the threshold of No 10 are totally extinguished. The tides of modern politics flow too unpredictably to completely write him off. Tax rises, chaos at the pumps and in the supermarket aisles, or a deadly new Covid strain, could theoretically be enough to convince the British people it’s time to hold their noses and take a punt on Labour.

But that would be true regardless of who was leading the party. Andy Burnham would bring greater authenticity. Lisa Nandy a bolder political vision. Dan Jarvis a more impressive and relatable biography. Angela Rayner – based on her pugnacious performance standing in at PMQs last week – some guts and passion.

Which again begs the question: What is Starmer bringing to the party? His allies promise his conference speech will be a significant departure from the antiTory tub-thumping that always delights Labour delegates, but turns off voters.

‘It’s going to be more optimistic and hopeful,’ one told me. ‘It’s going to be different.’ Different from what? He’s just delivered 12,216 words and said precisely nothing. Will he actually address Red Wall concerns about immigration? Will he finally chop down the magic money tree? Will his patriotism extend to closing his conference with a rendition of the National Anthem rather than the Red Flag?

Based on the number of deadends littering The Road Ahead, the answer is No. But people shouldn’t really be surprised. As the politician who admits to not liking or understanding politics, his colleagues’ dreams of him following in the footsteps of Blair or Kinnock were always just projection.

He struck at the Corbynites with all the skill of a coiled garden hose