So here's the thing about Keir Starmer: I'm not clear at all how he's going to handle things as LOTO. Maybe he isn't either. 🤷♂️ /THREAD
So often I've thought that he's a very clear-minded and cynical actor, which is great in my book. 👍 That's what politics is about. He waited to resign in summer 2016, then wrote a more-in-sorrow-than-anger letter. That miner in his video was a masterstroke of cynicism.
He gradually eroded Labour's Euroscepticism until he got what he wanted. He appealed to Conference delegates to make him unsackable. I like it. Highly intelligent.
But sooner or later, if he wants to get elected, he's going to have to take on the even more unpleasant regime that's coming at Unite, and call out the online hate machine alt-Lab has built. Otherwise, what's the point? He must sense this.
But then you look at some of these pledges (by no means all), and you think - believe people when they tell you what they are. It's Miliband 2.0, The Better Looking. Jezza's mates will surely be able to gradually reduce his authority - as, tbf, the Right did under EdM.
Now I like the idea that he's a Machiavellian, telling the selectorate what it wants to hear before going his own way. But he's already won this. He could start pegging out his own ground, yes, in code, cautiously. He isn't.
In the real world, likely he doesn't know where he's going either, and the slick 'b of the bang' campaign that raced out the blocks is just coz he's thought about that bit. Kinnock didn't start out with Meet the Challenge...
One thing's seems sure to me - given domination of HQ by people who hate Labour, who've always hated Labour, given how Conference votes might go, given EHRC, he's going to have to make a break for it or fail.
You can't pal up with most of the ancien regime. It's a binary. They'll come at you whatever in the end. So far in this respect, the Starmer offer bodes ill. He might well surprise me with some ruthlessness in the end. We'll see. /END 
