What joy there must be in Downing Street at the news that Sir Keir Starmer has emerged as the frontrunner for the Labour leadership. If there is one thing even more guaranteed to ensure another Labour defeat in 2024 than a continuity Corbyn candidate, it is a dripping wet London liberal as their leader.
Has Labour learned nothing from the loss of all those seats in its former heartlands in the Midlands and North? Over and over again, defeated candidates have reported, voters complained of how Labour had been taken over by the Remain-centred, woke brigade from London. Their communities had been left behind as Labour became obsessed with the sort of issues that light up an Islington salon.
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True, it is possible to present Starmer as the “sensible” choice if you look only at tax and spend policies.
I guess that a Starmer manifesto would stop short of offering £83billion of spending rises, all magically funded by the wealthiest five percent of the population – many of whom would have fled the country had Labour been elected.
As well as doing all he could to frustrate Brexit, Starmer is the former Director of Public Prosecutions who presided over the Crown Prosecution Service when it made many perverse decisions.
Under his leadership, the CPS failed to prosecute the serial rapist John Worboys for 75 of his suspected crimes.
He was convicted of attacks on 12 women in 2009 but the decision to limit prosecution to those cases led to him being recommended for early release.
It was Sir Keir Starmer’s CPS, too, that failed to prosecute Sir Jimmy Savile, below, in spite of evidence of his offending.
Starmer refused to prosecute two doctors caught on tape appearing to offer women abortions based on the gender of their unborn child – a clear breach of the law.
He said it wouldn’t be “in the public interest” – which presumably meant that he doesn’t like the law.
Wherever you stand on abortion, it shouldn’t be down to the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide what the law should be.
On the other hand, Starmer was reported to have intervened personally to insist on the prosecution of Paul Chambers, an airline passenger who foolishly sent a tweet jokingly suggesting he wanted to blow up Robin Hood Airport when his plane was delayed.
Chambers deserved a thorough rap on the knuckles, but to jam up the courts when we can’t seem to find the resources to prosecute genuine terrorists, like the 400 British citizens who are believed to have returned to Britain after fighting with IS?
There is a very clear voice coming out of former mining and industrial communities if only Labour is prepared to listen.
There are many voters who lean a little leftwards economically but are socially conservative.
They want properly funded public services, public investment in their regions and private firms kept British, not sold off to asset-strippers who will suck jobs out of the country.
But they are also patriotic and believe in institutions such as marriage.
They are most certainly not soft on crime and terrorism.
Labour is hardly speaking to these people at all.
On the contrary, Remain MPs like Sir Keir Starmer can hardly conceal their contempt for a group they seem to be consider to be too stupid to know what is good for them.
Corbyn’s Brexit policy may have been feeble and confused, but it is the likes of Starmer who did the real damage, by turning their backs on the party’s 2017 policy of carrying through Brexit and insisting that the manifesto contained the promise of a second referendum instead.
Labour’s leadership contest tells you all you need to know about the party’s attitude towards women.
When Corbyn first announced that he would step down, several potential female candidates emerged.
Yet over the past couple of weeks, they have been pushed aside.
A party which endlessly bleats about gender inequality can’t seem to cope with the idea of being led by a woman – 45 years after the Conservatives elected their first female leader.
True, the former frontrunner, Rebecca Long-Bailey, would have been a disaster as the continuity Corbyn candidate, but what about Lisa Nandy or Jess Phillips – both of whom the Tories fear for their connection to Labour’s lost voters?
The truth is that Labour is miles away from its claim to be the champion of the underdog.
It has its own aristocracy which seeks to keep people in their place.
Sir Keir Starmer is a prime example.
If elected, he would take the party nowhere.
