Son of Mathonwy wrote:Zhivago wrote:Son of Mathonwy wrote:
When you say 'Sir Keir Starmer QC isn't ever going to be able to appeal to normal people' you make it sound like it's something inherent to the man, not external. As a person, he's clearly more 'normal' than Blair - working class upbringing, state school, successful career outside of politics.
If it's about things that are external to him, then at least some if them can be changed, so I struggle to see how he can 'never' appeal to normal people. Newspapers and TV are still significant public opinion formers - the problem there is that Starmer's PR team (assuming he even has one??) has been pretty ineffective so far. But this could change.
You say 'Labour needs a political outsider. Someone who has leadership experience in the real world, but not within the Westminster milieu'. Surely Starmer is the closest thing to this as you could ever hope to find in a major party leader?
CPS HQ is located in Westminster. Temple is next door in The City. So, no, I would hope we can do better.
Look at Mark Drakeford - a teacher in his previous life. Much more like it. Now that's what I call a normal person.
You place a high important on physical proximity. So what if the CPS is located in Westminster? It's part of the civil service not part of government; it's non-political.
I'm sure Mark Drakeford is a good guy, but he's been actively involved in party politics from at least the mid 1980s, first locally, then in the Welsh government. Much of this ran alongside his academic work as a university lecturer till 2013, but by comparison Starmer has had much less to do with politics and government until recently. Which CV you consider to be more "real-world" is really a matter of opinion. I think if you compare Starmer with other Labour party leaders, you'll find he's far less of a career politician than most, which makes him more "normal" in my view.
Sure, Starmer has been disappointing, both in his political effectiveness and in he issues he seems interested in, but he really is the only hope for defeating the Tories at the next election. No doubt there would be different potential Labour leaders I'd prefer (although none made it to the voting stage of the leadership election) but he's what we've got, he's not going to stand aside. Given this, I just hope he starts getting some traction (the parties are neck and neck in the polls, at least).
Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions, answering to Tory MP Dominic Grieve. Before Grieve he was appointed by (and answered to) Dominic Grieve's predecessor, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, Life Peer in the House of Lords, who was elevated to the Lords by Blair, and who appointed Starmer under Brown's watch. So I think given his boss was the Attorney General, he was working very closely with the politicians in power during his time as DPP. Before his time as DPP he was an advisor to the Foreign Office on the matter of the death penalty.
All in all, all credit to him for his successes, but over the course of his career he elevated himself above that of a 'normal' person. Maybe he was a 'normal' person a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure that Keir Starmer belongs very much to the past. I dare say his transition out of 'normal' society, into elite society probably started with Oxford, continued at Middle Temple, and then even more so as he was exposed to the corridors of power.
As DPP he chose not to prosecute the police officers who shot dead that innocent Brazilian fella Jean-Charles de Menzies, and also initially chose not to prosecute the copper who killed Ian Tomlinson. He also caused the collapse of the trial of the corrupt police officers who got the Cardiff Three wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of Lynette White. He has a bit of an authoritarian steak in him if you ask me. Bit of a law and order type who has consistently sided with the law, even when the law has been in the wrong.
So I think Starmer is the wrong choice because he is a Blairite by dint of who he owes his DPP appointment to, and has an authoritarian side to him that puts me off massively. He is also no longer a 'normal' person who 'normal' people can relate to, he has been walking elitist corridors for far too long now. And he certainly isn't gonna win anyone over with his cold demeanor, impassive manner, and drab character.
Mark Drakeford is a great example of a 'normal' person so that we can compare with Starmer. When Drakeford was elected to the Welsh Assembly, he was a professor at Cardiff Uni. That's a world away from the Head of the CPS who answers daily to the Attorney General. But Mark Drakeford is no less intelligent. Professors are not stupid people by and large. So you can find a nice balance of smart and normal. You don't need to pick someone smart who has climbed up towards the corridors of power. And unlike Boris, although Drakeford studied Latin at university, he doesn't go on about it in order to show off to the plebs.