When he addresses the Brighton conference, the Labour leader has to connect with the country and restore the confidence of his party
That legendary philosopher of time Joe Strummer once said: “The future is unwritten.” This quote from The Clash frontman makes a surprise appearance on page 21 of the essay published in the name of Sir Keir Starmer in which he expends 13,000 words trying to answer the criticism that he doesn’t stand for anything because he doesn’t believe in anything.
I think I understand why that Strummerism appeals to Sir Keir. One of the sharpest of myriad challenges facing the Labour leader is that a lot of people think his future is already written – and not in a good way. Eighteen months into the job, many in his own party and outside it are concluding that he is doomed to take Labour to another defeat at the next election. Starting with a shrivelled base of just 202 Labour MPs, his task never looked easy, but for a while there were some wisps of hope that he was climbing the mountain. Even if he did not win, there seemed a decent possibility that he could create the conditions for a dramatic improvement to Labour’s position. Those hopes have been evaporating in recent months. The loss of the Hartlepool byelection was followed by a near-death experience in Batley and Spen. After a promising start to his leadership, his approval ratings sagged, then dived and have now bottomed out in deeply negative territory.
