He doesn’t look like the innovative type, but Keir Starmer is staging a radical experiment. He is testing out a theory of politics a matter of months after it was seemingly – and spectacularly – disproved and, in the process, hoping to pull off a turnaround that would constitute a comeback so stunning it would be closer to a resurrection.
The theory in question is that if you deliver practical improvements to the lives of voters, they will reward you at the ballot box. Its guiding principle is “show, don’t tell”, with the emphasis on results rather than talk, pragmatism rather than ideology. He’s not the first to try it: this was also the animating creed of Joe Biden’s presidency – and we know how that worked out.
