Nobody’s perfect, according to former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. At an Intelligence Squared talk in Islington last night, a young audience member came to Campbell with a conundrum: her friends no longer want to vote for Keir Starmer because of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. What should she do?
“Get off your high horse and vote Labour,” he instructed with classic Campbell finesse. He explained to the idealistic questioner that “there’s no such thing as a perfect candidate. Abraham Lincoln was not a perfect human being, Nelson Mandela was not a perfect human being”. Steady on with those comparisons, AlCam. Starmer hasn’t earned them just yet.
