Keir Starmer has told the BBC that he has no intention of honouring the 10 pledges he made during the Labour leadership election, especially his multiply-repeated commitment to renationalise the UK energy sector.
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The narrative Keir Starmer attempts to use to justify tearing up his promises is an absolute masterclass in deception and disingenuousness.
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Starmer attempts to create a contrast between the promises like energy renationalisation that he made to Labour Party members, and the nebulous concept of "electability", as if there's some fundamental contradiction between keeping his word, and winning elections.
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Who is it that defines this hazy concept of "electability"?
If anyone defines "electability", then it's the British public as a whole, isn't it? They decide who is electable or not on election days.
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If anyone defines "electability", then it's the British public as a whole, isn't it? They decide who is electable or not on election days.
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Anyone talking about "electability" outside of election periods would obviously have to refer to polling data, and even then, they'd be stretching credibility to claim that they have any special expertise on what's electable or not.
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So if you actually look into what the UK public want, a majority want public ownership of the energy sector, not a continuation of the rip-off shambles of profiteering corporations & foreign governments using UK energy infrastructure for their own wealth extraction purposes.
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Then there's the polling data that shows people think Starmer has done a terrible job as leader of the opposition, and that more people think he should resign immediately than stay in the job!
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https://twitter.com/LeftieStats/status/1442783191270580225
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Starmer's is attempting to argue that he must prove himself a liar by tearing up his 10 pledges, and that he must refuse to give the UK public what they want (energy renationalisation, and his own letter of resignation) because that somehow makes Labour "more electable"!
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I'd argue that openly boasting "I lie to people to get myself elected" is not the galaxy-brained general election winning strategy Starmer seems to think it is.
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OK, Repeatedly lying has worked a treat for Johnson, but he's in a completely different situation to Starmer.
Johnson's entire election pitch was aimed at low-information voters who don't have the political attention span to even care that he was lying through his teeth.
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Johnson's entire election pitch was aimed at low-information voters who don't have the political attention span to even care that he was lying through his teeth.
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Johnson appealed to people who didn't care about his drunken lies about not creating a border down the Irish Sea, or that his "Oven-Ready Brexit" was just a copy of May's rubbish deal (which Johnson repeatedly voted against) with an Irish Sea border lazily scrawled onto it.
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Then there's the fact that Tory Party activists have repeatedly proven themselves more than willing to campaign for people they know to be inveterate liars.
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Tory activists never had the slightest problem with campaigning for an absolute bullshitter like Cameron, and Johnson in 2019 lowered the bar even further than his ham-faced, porky-telling Old Etonian chum.
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If Labour are to stand any chance of winning, they need to appeal to the kind of informed voters who actually care whether they're being lied to or not, and they need their activists and volunteers to be energised rather than demoralised.
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Starmer's "I lie to con people into electing me" bragging is going to do the exact opposite.
It's going to put off informed voters, and it's going to demoralise and drive away Labour Party activists.
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It's going to put off informed voters, and it's going to demoralise and drive away Labour Party activists.
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And Starmer's dishonesty is not even going to work as a strategy for attracting low-information voters either, because lying may well work as an election strategy, but openly telling people you're going to lie to them to trick them into voting for you isn't.
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Furthermore, Johnson's lies are flamboyant and entertaining in comparison to a drab empty suit like Starmer boringly bragging about how he cons people into voting for him.
A liar Starmer may be, a showman he certainly isn't.
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A liar Starmer may be, a showman he certainly isn't.
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How people laughed at the irony when Johnson said political liars should be publicly humiliated by crawling on their knees through parliament, but absolutely nobody is laughing now, as Starmer pathetically boasts about how he lies to people's faces to get himself elected.
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