Starmer has mastered the speeches about Tory ‘chaos’ and ‘decline’, but Britain needs hope – where is it? | Andy Beckett

The Labour leader needs to say what is wrong with the country, but people need to know how he will make things better

To win power, opposition parties need to say something compelling about the status quo. This isn’t necessarily as easy as just advocating “change”, the word Labour has chosen to emphasise in the speeches and backdrops of its big election events and on the side of its battlebus.

Promise too much change, as the party did in 2019, and voters either won’t believe you can make it happen, or will be put off by the potential disruption. Promise too little change, as Labour did at the 2015 election, and voters will remain unengaged.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist. His book on Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left since the 1960s, The Searchers: Five Rebels, Their Dream of a Different Britain, and Their Many Enemies, is out now

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