Yes, Keir Starmer is boring – and that makes him exactly the man for this moment

A lack of flash that before coronavirus appeared a weakness seems a strength at this critical time, writes Matthew Norman

Sunday 05 April 2020 16:53 EDT
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Starmer is choosing not to make hay out of the pandemic
Starmer is choosing not to make hay out of the pandemic (Getty)

In 2015, a friend of a friend answered her door to a guy who introduced himself as the Labour candidate in the forthcoming general election. After chatting for 20 minutes, she was impressed. So impressed that, though he’d never run for parliament before, she lumped £200 on him one day to be prime minister at 800-1.

No cigar for guessing a) that candidate’s identity or b) that the odds have shrunk. Today, Keir Starmer is a 5-2 shot to succeed Boris Johnson.

The holder of that Wonka-esque golden ticket has a dilemma: cash in now for a large sum (if a fraction of the potential payout), or hold onto it in the hope of collecting the full £160,000 after the general election of 2024. In ordinary times, the case against option two would be easier to make. In a frantic multimedia era, it goes, Starmer is a dinosaur; a political throwback to an age before 24-hour news. He doesn’t do soundbites (though “now we know who the key workers really are” on Andrew Marr wasn’t bad); wit and jollity aren’t his thing. Doggedly industrious and stolidly dependable, Starmer seems ill-suited to our craving for political pyrotechnics.

But these are not ordinary times. As I write, the view over my local park (a five-minute stroll from Starmer’s constituency) is of a police car making its way through as its officers berate sunbathers. The blazing sun and vibrant flowers can’t disguise the fact that, almost overnight, the colour drained from our lives, and won’t return soon. Years after the virus is tamed, the economic fall out will be radioactive. Recovery to the status quo ante – if it happens at all – will be agonisingly slow.

If the years ahead are to be endured in monochrome, a monochrome Labour leader might be the antidote to the lurid incompetence of the incumbent prime minister. Limiting himself to “mistakes have been made”, Starmer took typical care on Marr to avoid point-scoring. He is too honest to imply that any of this is simple or clear cut, too patient to throw haymakers. He might, for instance, have dwelt on Matt Hancock’s blatant lie that herd immunity was never contemplated; he didn’t.

When the day of reckoning comes, as it must, expect Starmer to pick Johnson apart with legalistic precision for the weeks of terminal drift that cost lives. Until then, he will mingle general supportiveness with specific constructive criticisms. In the meantime, he has a politically balanced shadow cabinet to construct, and peace to make with the Jewish community.

So far as the former, the return of certain Corbyn refuseniks will have the cuss word “Blairite” spat at him by the infantile far left. He is nothing of the kind – he is no neo-Thatcherite, and the least factional Labour leader in memory – but the accusation will help with the disaffected voters he needs to regain. As for the rapprochement with Britain’s Jews, being married to one and raising two children in the faith should turbocharge that process.

The more you contemplate Keir Starmer, the more perfect for the moment he appears. His abundant lack of flash that before coronavirus appeared a weakness now seems a strength in contrast with the ailing music hall act with nothing to offer but flash.

If Johnson’s self-comparison to Churchill is laughable, it’s equally ridiculous to liken Starmer, after 24 hours in the job, to the magnificently low-key Clement Attlee. Yet anyone tempted to dismiss Starmer as a non-entity is reminded that the same was said of Labour’s greatest leader.

Keir Starmer to appoint a 'balanced' shadow cabinet

Churchill joked about an empty taxi rolling up at Westminster, and Attlee getting out of it. He wasn’t laughing in 1945 when, in the immediate aftermath of war, the people gave Clem a huge landslide. After years of misery and sacrifice, Britons demanded a radical socio-economic alignment. Regardless of their gratitude to Churchill, they didn’t trust him to deliver. They trusted Attlee. Within three years, the NHS – the same now battling so heroically, despite being on its knees – was born.

Assuming Johnson doesn’t remould the Conservatives into a democratic socialist party – a big ask, you suspect, with Jacob Rees-Mogg’s hedge fund now offering investors a glorious corona-based opportunity to clean up – Britain could be in the mood for another dramatic shift, after all the tedium of this pandemic. The last election was decided by the unique circumstance of Brexit and a uniquely mistrusted opposition leader; the next is more winnable than the Tory majority suggests.

The virus makes it even more so, and the choice of the reassuringly grown-up Starmer more still. The wager I had yesterday – that Labour will be ahead in the polls by the end of this year – was only for £10. But I expect I’ll be taking that tenner off my dad come October. As for my friend’s rather bigger bet, I suggest putting her slip in the safe, and riding her luck all the way to May 2024.

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