Starmer And His Speech: Insipid, Insincere and Inadequate

Was that what you would call a “keynote” speech from Keir Starmer? 

I looked in the Collins Dictionary for how you would define “keynote”, and it says - 

“The keynote of a policy, speech, or idea is the main theme of it or the part of it that is emphasized the most.” 

There was a theme to it, so we’ll call it a keynote speech. 

Now, it’s no secret I’m not Keir Starmer’s biggest fan. I’ve scribbled down around 100,000 words in my blogs, explaining why I think he is the wrong person for the job, and the last time I checked I had piled up more than 600,000 blog views since August last year. 

Barely a day goes by where I’m not ranting about him on the Twittersphere. I’ve actually lost friends and followers over my refusal to sign up for the ‘cult of Keith’. Believe it or not, there was a time when I was willing to hear him out. 

There was a time when I sincerely believed with every fibre of my being that any Labour government is better than a Conservative government - and it really wasn’t that long ago. And do you know what? It may well be. 

It just doesn’t feel that way, simply because of the internal damage he has done to the Labour Party since taking over in April 2020. 

So, based on the fact I am quite obviously not a ‘Starmerrhoid’ or a ‘Keirleader’, you would expect this mini-blog reaction to Keir Starmer’s big keynote speech to be nothing less than contemptuous, petty, and barbed. 

And you would be absolutely right to expect that. 

I watched the first ten seconds on the television - I needed to see if they were going to sneak any flags into the backdrop. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a flag in sight, although Keir Starmer did remind us of his patriot credentials when he said “I love my country”, in the same way a Tory MP would say “I care about poor people.” 

George Orwell said, “The greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity”, and I’m afraid Starmer oozes insincerity. It’s painful to watch. 

I switched over to the radio once I realised the flags must’ve been at the dry cleaners, but took great comfort in knowing Team Starmer went with a New Labour/UKIP purple/mauve mashup backdrop, leading to suggestions of Peter Mandelson’s influence being felt early on. 

And the pitiful three word soundites were plentiful. 

“Secure. Protect. Rebuild.” 

And then you had that three-word soundbite split into another three focus-group three-word soundbites. Are we keeping up here? 

“Secure the economy”. 

“Protect our NHS”. 

“Rebuild our country”. 

Does Starmer share marketing agencies with Boris Johnson? 

Has anyone told Starmer how we would be in our FOURTH year of a Labour government - securing the economy, protecting our NHS, and rebuilding our country - had it not been for a vast majority of his current Shadow Cabinet sabotaging the former leader of the opposition at every opportunity they could? I guess not. 

He spoke of his pride of being a human rights lawyer. One word for you - Palestine. 

Starmer said, “when I see an injustice, I want to put it right”, but he didn’t really sound like he believed himself. Starmer has been the cause of deep injustices within his own Party. He knows it, so do we, and hell will freeze over before we give up.

He spoke of a better way of doing things, without telling us how he would do things. This is entirely consistent with his political career. An opportunist with a sharp suit and a splodge of hair gel. 

His actual delivery is diabolical. 

Whether you liked him or not, Tony Blair had a certain charisma that appealed to people. Not everyone, but enough to win elections, before the days when Brexit was the overriding factor. The same can be said for the abomination Johnson. The stupid act works well for him. 

But Starmer really has nothing. No charisma, no authenticity, no passion. It’s just not there. Starmer hasn’t got it. The entire event was tedious, from start to finish. It was political Valium.

Do you feel any wiser as to what Keir Starmer stands for? Even if you approached that speech with the most open of minds you would be hard pushed not to be utterly disappointed with the lack of substance. 

I’ve spent a few hours listening to the reaction to his keynote speech, from us on the politically homeless left, to the centrist dads working from home, to the floating voter who just wants a realistic but ambitious vision to get behind. 

It would appear Sir Keir has managed to unite several factions in agreeing it was an absolute waste of time. It was dour, it lacked hope, and each and every time, it always comes back to the fact he has the charisma of a telegraph pole. 

Today was meant to be a ‘reset and relaunch’ for Team Starmer, but it failed on take-off. Give it a couple of months and we will have another day where Keir Starmer attempts to reset and relaunch, and then another, and this will keep going on until someone has the guts to challenge him. 

He is still up against the worst government in living memory. He still trails Johnson in both the voting intention polls and the personal approval ratings. He still isn’t twenty points ahead. He still has a majority of the British media treating him as if he isn’t a threat to the establishment.

Think about it. Johnson has the tragic deaths of 120,000 men, women and children on his charge sheet. He is a known racist, homophobe, thug, and philanderer. He is a charlatan, he is deeply dishonest. He voted for most of the austerity that left our NHS on its knees. How did that turn out? 

There are no excuses for Starmer. They quickly forget the fact Jeremy Corbyn was EIGHT points ahead of Theresa May’s government in late 2017. Yes, it was a terrible administration, but you can’t even begin to put them in the same bracket as Johnson’s bunch. We sat on 45%. 

While we demanded a general election in late 2017, as Theresa May’s government was on the brink, Starmer’s mind was focused on demanding a People’s Vote. 

The Labour hierarchy couldn’t have us eight points clear though, and so began the biggest ever smear-job and character assassination of a decent, principled politician ever witnessed in British politics, culminating in the disastrous but entirely predictable crushing General Election defeat in 2019. 

Anyway, I think I’ve exceeded the norm for a mini-blog, so I’ll leave you all to get on with dissecting the insipid, insincere and inadequate keynote speech, and if you haven’t watched it yet, don’t bother, don’t put yourself through unnecessary torture, you’ll only get to the end of it and wonder why you didn’t just have a power nap instead. 

Until next time,

Rachael x

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