Keir Starmer does have a vision – and it’s not New Labour 2.0 | Martin Kettle

Defying political orthodoxy, the leader believes he can win an election outright by reuniting his party’s working- and middle-class wings

For some, any idea that Keir Starmer and audacity are words that can sit comfortably in the same sentence will seem nonsensical. To many who define themselves as Labour supporters, the most salient characteristic of the opposition leader is not his audacity but its opposite, timidity. In this critique, Starmer’s strategy, if he really has one, is to do as little as possible to offend the voters, and wait for the Conservatives to eject themselves from government by their own divisions and incompetence rather than to drive them from it.

Seen thus, the English local elections of 2023 were quickly interpreted as an object warning on the limits of this supposed approach. The Conservative vote share on 4 May was predictably down after the negligence and bloodletting of 2022. Labour’s lead, though, was more modest, so the spoils were shared with the Liberal Democrats and Greens. After the voting, a Labour landslide no longer beckoned as brightly. Instead, the future seems more likely to offer a hung parliament and talk of coalition deals.

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