That Starmer fella...

I think stonehedge did a pretty solid summary of what he stands for a few pages back.

It's mainly centrist dad suff like human rights and the rule of law.

I appears that he follows what he thinks will appeal to groups, often floating voters, and this makes him look insincere.

I think this is a fair criticism. I don't think it's true - I think Starmer has fairly decent, solid principles, he just knows that if he's honest about them he'll lose the next election - but I also think that this means they're they're missing something fundamental in terms of the offering and they've not replaced it with anything else.

If you think of any successful politician you can sum up what they stand for in a few words. Blair: fair meritocracy. Trump: protectionist psychopathy. Biden: pragmatic boringness. These impressions might be wrong, but they're a set of values you can hang policy announcements off the back of. They're context.

Starmer is missing his context. He's defined what he isn't. He needs to define what he is. And I think he might've missed the boat on that. He tried to do it at conference but who the hell watches conference? No-one normal. So it's allowed this void to sort of take shape any time he announces policy, it feels as though they aren't grounded on any firm principles.

Maybe it'll be enough. But someone who isn't a strong interviewer/speaker should compensate for it with the back office stuff - strategy, policy wonkery, baseline value repetition and establishment. I'm worried the failure to address this gap in good time speaks to a weakness in the back office stuff too.