A benchmark for Starmer’s Vision of the future: Tony Blair in 1994
Ahead of his latest relaunch Keir Starmer has handed a statement to the Observer which they have printed with some added wrap around (link below).
He apparently aims to use his speech at Labour Conference in September to paint his vision of the future.
There are several concerns here. Some might say that the 10 pledges he made when elected Labour leader last year were his vision. No doubt he will argue things have changed(Dylan) but he stands accused of outlining a politics he did not in fact support.
A second concern is that he has shown no sign so far of being a good public speaker. Some have a natural aptitude for this, most have to learn by actually doing it. It might be argued that he is on a learning curve.
A third concern is his stated view that Tony Blair is someone who can offer lessons for the present. We know Blair himself thinks so, while many do not agree.
However, whatever his other shortcomings, Blair as Labour leader was a good speaker( & I heard him quite a few times). I’m not talking about what he said but rather that he could hold an audience.
A fourth concern is that while in my view Blair entirely lost it with Iraq he did when elected leader have a good political brain. Indeed the speech he made when he was elected leader in July 1994 impressed even Tony Benn.
Benn noted(21 July 1994)
I watched Blair carefully because I havent heard him make a general speech and it was really quite radical. He talked about ending quangos and ending hereditary peers, about right and wrong, and I think he drew in part on Caroline’s Keir Hardie, which he had reviewed very sympathetically
You don’t need to like Blair or his politics to understand that in the mid-1990s he had political appeal(the left of course opposed him, as did I) which Starmer has yet to find and may never find.
the Labour leader said he would use the forthcoming annual conference to paint “in primary colours” the kind of country a new Labour government would champion.
As many have said, red is a primary colour
Gill