For more than two years, an awfully long while in these frenetic political times, people have been waiting for Keir Starmer to do something bold. Since he became the Labour leader, Britain has been shut down by the pandemic, choked by Brexit, made poorer by the cost of living crisis, and governed by the most casually destructive prime minister in its recent history. In response, Starmer has offered “constructive opposition”, modest and mostly quickly forgotten new policies, and long silences.
The few risks he has taken have been the usual ones of orthodox Labour leaders: picking fights with the left; dropping radical but popular policies such as nationalisation; and generally dragging the party to the right. Meanwhile, he has left the over-mighty business interests and dysfunctional markets that dominate British life largely unchallenged.
