“We can stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country,” declares Labour’s manifesto. With faith in politics at an all-time low, why should that slogan be any more credible than “stop the boats”? How much better can the Labour party make Britain, when its combined tax and spending promises amount to only 0.2% of GDP? And yet I could not help myself thinking: I actually want this. I would love to rebuild the country. I would love it if food banks came to feel like a dark Tory nightmare. I would love not to lurch from one catastrophe to the next. Slogans feel different when you want them.
Labour’s manifesto looks like a catalogue from which you can buy multiple Keirs – 36 poses across a range of moods, running the gamut from “businesslike” to “serious”. He appeared on the Manchester podium, sleeves rolled up in echo of his core message: that he will roll his sleeves up. He is still engaged in a bit of left-baiting, repeating that this is a “changed Labour party”. When a protester interrupted, he said, “We gave up being a party of protest five years ago. We want to be a party of power.”
