Project Starmer, like Project Blair, is all about one thing: winning

No gimmicks, Keir Starmer kept on saying as he launched Labour’s latest, er, gimmick: a reboot of Tony Blair’s gimmicky 1997 pledge card.

Abso-blooming-lutely no gimmicks here! Which is why Sir Keir was standing tieless with his shirt sleeves rolled up, while all the men in his shadow cabinet were forced to wear smart suits and ties fastened up to their Adam’s apple. ‘Cuz he’s the boss, innee, giving a team talk in the dressing room to the junior management!

No gimmicks, but lots of very serious subliminal messaging. Like the way all the shadow ministers, even Rachel Reeves, had to follow an autocue (look how controlled and on-message they are!), whereas Starmer just had a few bullet points on his screen, filling in the speech from memory. ‘Cuz ‘es speaking from his heart, innit!

So here we all are, at a theatrical production hall in Purfleet for Starmer’s 16th relaunch, four days after Rishi Sunak’s seventh relaunch. How on earth will they keep this momentum up until an election day that is not likely to take place until somewhere around bonfire night?

You knew Labour was getting serious when Angela Rayner trimmed her My Little Pony red tresses for a smart executive hairdo. The would-be DPM posed for a selfie with the neatly bobbed Reeves and the pair looked, for the first time, like members of the same tribe.

Visual impressions matter, and this event was a heck of a lot more professional looking than Sunak’s static performance in front of a ghastly advertising “wall” in SW1 on Monday.

Lectern pushed aside, Labour’s would-be PM paced the floor, performing “in the round”. Voice and body animated, hands and arms fluidly forming an array of gestures, from the vicar-esque fingertips-together-in-hope to the nothing-to-hide arms wide open.

In one superbly pitched passage, he recalled meeting a woman at Knutsford services who was waiting years in agony for treatment for an ingrowing, inflamed eyelid. Starmer took off his black-rimmed spectacles, and gingerly touched his own left eye as he described her torment. He made you feel her pain, and feel his desire to heal it.

This was a pro delivery, and a quantum leap improvement on the Starmer of a year ago. Old dog, maybe, but still learning new tricks. Boris used to mock him hilariously as Sir Snoreathon, but in a contest between Sunak and Starmer, the boring jibe just ain’t gonna work.

Over to the pledge card which bears a photo of Starmer in superhero pose, gazing at a distant horizon, hands in pockets, Daz-white shirt slightly creasing around a hint of paunch: just enough flab to show he is mortal after all.

“I am not going to give you gimmicks,” Starmer vowed. “There is no quick fix.” To be honest, there weren’t even any long-term fixes on the wretched card.

His offerings included to “launch” a new border command. To “set up” an energy company. Promises of activity rather than outcomes. To “deliver economic stability with tough spending rules”, as though invasions, plagues and Brexit could all be banished by the Treasury’s blue pencil. To cut NHS waiting times “with 40,000 more appointments each week” – although extra operations might do even more good.

“These aren’t small steps,” insisted Starmer when the gaps were pointed out. But therein lies his dilemma: how can you simultaneously campaign as a Party Of Change when you also want to be The Party That Won’t Rock The Boat? Ironically, his problem is the mirror of Sunak’s: a PM who wants to be Mr Continuity Safety at the same time as Mr Different.

But pledge cards do work. The late polling guru Philip Gould said Blair’s “worked better than anything else I have ever tested in politics”. To my surprise, I find I can still remember four of Blair’s five pledges from memory. Which is why I instantly noticed the glaring omission in Starmer’s remake: there is no pledge not to raise income tax rates.

Events like these don’t always succeed, as I know well from having been in the audience for Neil Kinnock’s infamous “Sheffield Wednesday” rally in 1992. Kinnock’s cry of “Aaaarrrright!” looked dreadful on TV, and a party that seemed to be cruising into power was sunk. Starmer made a show of taking nothing for granted, with a riff echoing one of the late John Smith’s last speeches: “What we seek, humbly,” – a long pause to let that word sink in – “is the chance to change our country and put it back in the service of working people.”

Aside from the theatrics, the event produced more evidence that boots on the ground and suits in the boardroom are shifting Starmer’s way. His speech was preceded by a stream of endorsements – not just the awe-inspiring music teacher, Nathaniel Dye, who has stage 4 bowel cancer and was at Labour conference, but new defectors from Tory circles: Rob Boughton, CEO of Thakeham Housing, which donated almost £1m to the Tories.

Then there’s Seb James, the boss of Boots who went to Eton with David Cameron and once had a government job – a local family guy who’s voted Conservative before but has had enough. Even Neil Basu, the former Met Police assistant commissioner and head of counterterrorism popped up.

Media questions followed. Was Starmer just a copycat of Blair? “He won three elections in a row,” replied Labour’s current leader without hesitation. Project Starmer, like Project Blair, is all about one thing: winning.