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@Spotlight created a Debate
2 years ago
Starmer's former aid admits he deliberately lied during the leadership election!
Jenny Chapman was Starmer's senior advisor when he ran for the Labour leadership. Chapman has remained a close ally, despite the fact that she was removed from her role over mistakes that were made during the Hartlepool by-election in May 2021. The former MP for Darlington, now Baroness Chapman of Darlington, was given a life peerage by Starmer in March 2021 and Starmer then gave her the newly created role of 'Shadow Minister of State at the Cabinet Office' in June 2021.
Chapman ran Starmer’s leadership campaign so, its safe to say, she would have more than just a insight into their campaign strategy because she was actually involved in developing it. Speaking to POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast, Chapman tells us.. "I think what you’re seeing now is his real politics... There was an understanding [in 2020] of the best issues to talk about if you want to become leader of the Labour Party. There is permission there to say, ‘this is the kind of country it would be lovely if it could be,’ because you’re not actually pitching to the entire country to be the prime minister... The essay question is very different when you’re asking to be leader of a movement, to asking to be prime minister of an entire country — which has people with much, much more diverse needs than our half a million Labour Party members... And because he’s made that shift, that is why we have a chance — just a chance — of winning the next election.”
Chapman is effectively admitting that they said what they felt they needed to say to win the leadership campaign even though they knew, at the time, that they had no intention of keeping those pledges. She has also, inadvertently, admitted that Starmer's strategy will be to say whatever he thinks they need to say in order to try and win the election.
What Chapman is not telling us is what Starmer actually stands for. Her observation that British people have very diverse needs is telling, as it seems to explain why Starmer's strategy, to date, has been to stay non-committal. If you commit to something now then you may win favour with one section of the voting public but you'll also lose the support of another, so the strategy seems to be to keep voters guessing. In their view, all that matters is that voters know what the Tory party stands for - corruption, cronyism, rising costs, rising debt, scandal after scandal, racist policies, failed privatisation, mishandling of Covid pandemic, raw sewage in our waters.. I could go on but I think you get the picture? In a nutshell, it seems Starmer is banking on people voting for the devil they don't know.
Nationalisation of railways and utilities is popular amongst the electorate, so if Starmer has deliberately moved away from his pitch to party members to a different pitch for a general election, why would he virtually abandonbnationalisation?
Good point Troutmaskreplica. Seems to be the game in their mind is to commit to nothing and keep people guessing?