Shrimsley in the FT reckons (£|θ) Starmer has long way to go to emulate Blair. He argues that if Starmer doesn’t define himself, then his enemies will do it for him. An interesting insight given what his advisors are leaking (£) to the Times. Shrimsley also argues that Blair focused ruthless on voters, not members or activists although I wonder if that trick can off pulled again but the biggest jog to the memory was the pledge card; and Labour cynics just thought it was important to say anything other than “to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their labour by the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.”
This shows how far we’ve come, in 1997, I wished for more radicalism, today, this would be welcome, although as a harbinger of the government’s programme, nothing on housing nor employee protection.