As stupid as he is boring?

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When things go wrong for us, when we fail, get criticised and suffer a bruised ego…it behooves us to pause, to reflect on our actions.

Where did we go wrong? What role might our own vanity and foolishness have played ? We first look to ourselves and seek to correct the flaws in our own outlook and character.

What was going on in the mind of Keir Starmer after the ‘disappointing’ results in the recent local elections and the loss of the Hartlepool bye-election? 

Was he wondering whether his luke-warm rebukes of a government directly complicit in the Covid-19 deaths of 150,000+ people were really enough? Did he reflect that putting up a remain candidate in a Brexit voting constituency was perhaps… misguided?

Did he regret waging war on the left of the Labour Party – after all, Hartlepool elected two Labour MP’s under Jeremy Corbyn but handed ignominious defeat to Starmer’s right-wing lurchers?

Did Keir muse about the wisdom of staging hollow photo-ops in Hartlepool while the tories offered promises of solid investment?

Was Starmer disconcerted at how unimpressed the people of Hartlepool were by the canvassing of Peter Mandleson?

Did he really think that holding a post election interview within the Palace of Westminster (alongside copies of Hansard) was the ideal backdrop for reconnecting with working class voters? After the interview did the leader of her majesty’s opposition rue not having a single solitary word on policies to back up his ‘Vision for Britain’?

It seems like Keir Starmer likes to look to himself after all, he said in 2020 that…

It is through adversity and failure that we learn most about ourselves – these are the moments best suited to spiritual and psychological growth. 

So what were the key questions that the Labour leader was asking of himself in 2021?

Well actually it would seem there were only two:

(a) How can I evade responsibility?

and movingly (for Starmer’s moral example is a thing to behold)

(b) Who can I sack?

A matter of hours after promising to take ‘full responsibility’ Keir’s ‘office’ was building on a three-tier blame avoidance strategy:

(1) Blame the circumstances. It was Covid-19 you see – THAT was why they couldn’t ‘get their message out’. Surely it would have helped if Labour had a message?

Charlie Brooker noted that ‘uh’ was the most inspiring thing that Ed Milliband said in the 2015 General Election and if the pandemic spared Labour from having busses crisscrossing the nation with ‘MESSAGE TBC’ written on the side and a glassy-eyed Starmer drearily mumbling about ‘change’ (nothing) then perhaps they should be glad. Lord knows if Labour had been able to ‘get its message out’ things might have been much worse – this way voters could imagine Labour having an idea. Why spend money proving to everyone they didn’t?

(2) Blame the voters

You see the trouble with these damn voters was that the Tories promised investment, jobs and a brighter tomorrow while Labour offered shots of Keir Starmer pretending to pull a pint in a Hartlepool pub and Peter Mandleson doing trick-or-treat on the doorsteps of uninterested council estates. Bafflingly many chose to vote Tory which just goes to show few voters understand how trustworthy and inspiring Starmer’s clique are.

(3) Find scapegoats

In an effort to ‘rebuild trust’ (this is Starmerspeak for ‘show the voters the error of their ways – because his contempt for working class voters in particular is fully embodied) Keir built on his pledge of ‘taking responsibility’ by briefing the press that he was going to sack (scapegoat) Angela Rayner because she was rubbish and disloyal – this would show how decisive and strong he was!

Trouble was, Keir doesn’t understand Labour politics very well and realised too late that he couldn’t – so instead he sent minions out to claim the briefings of his own office were a social media storm and that in fact Rayner was being promoted! When the press innocently enquired what job she was being promoted to – nobody seemed to know and this wasn’t surprising, because Rayner hadn’t agreed with Starmer’s aides the price she would extract for allowing him to climb down yet. 

Still the rest of the ‘re-shuffle’ promoted right-wingers as part of a nakedly obvious Blairite power grab – for if there is one thing that the recent elections proved, it’s that what Britain really wants are more jobs for Starmer’s right-wing cronies.

A Labour wag tweeted that Starmer was ‘as stupid as he is boring’ but we wouldn’t dream of endorsing anything so accurate.

Starmer knows that re-positioning Labour to the right of the Tories is the thing to do – for isn’t that the transformative vision that the world needs? Starmer’s mission is to re-train the Labour movement and indeed the nation in the skills of being as marvelously pleased with the agenda of corporate lobbyists as he is. As things stand that is the only way Labour gets elected.

What happy days lie ahead… 

Since 2013 I have worked on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and speaking simple truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

If you find this website useful and could spare us a few shillings to help keep our lights on, it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

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