Farewell to Starmerism: an abrasive noise, deep in the night..

Dispatch 02

Starmer said he needed 10 years to enact all his changes – thank goodness he only got two. 

As if waiting to unleash on a bottled-up vendetta; he quickly went after British heartlands: farmers, green belts, pubs – with callous and cold-hearted moves designed to disrupt and demoralise.

There was a sense under Starmer that he was coming for every aspect of your life – and that sentiment, nostalgia and a sense of belonging were a raw nerve; a threat and danger to his vision.

But that’s no way to run a country – and it quickly told.

With every move he fuelled the right and enabled a radical left – both jumping ship from Labour – while creating divisions evident at street level, and polling booths that saw local election wipeout and plunging to the lowest approval ratings since the 70s. And, impressively, he managed to dissolve the two party system – with extremes on either side filling the void.

It was a reign brutally punctuated with tragic murders, and subsequent riots inflamed by his handling and masking of tragedy; with his need for ‘narrative’ over the very human emotions required: empathy, tenderness and a will to call-out and act. 

And now, hundreds of thousands march to ‘take back Britain,’ while the same number gather in Trafalgar Square to dance and rave in opposition. It’s a highly regrettable and divisive climate – all ramped-up and steroid-fuelled under Starmer’s watch. All avoidable.

Unlike that hard-to-place vision of Starmer’s that felt like governance by some blunt, external force; in Burnham, there is something deeply British and recognisable in the ideology and early signs.

An attack on Thatcher and ‘neo-liberalism’ – even if reminiscing about an idealised, imagined past. These are the well-trodden arguments of sixth-form common rooms, Glastonbury tent debates – and beer-soaked chatter at Radio 6 concerts. A backbench ramble from Tony Benn. It’s somehow warmingly relatable like an old theme tune, or song – even if you don’t like the music.

Despite the policy to come, there is at least a sense with Burnham that even in deep ideological disagreement, he’d understand why real-life concerns and human experience drive people to vote a certain way – and that great British tradition of ‘sorting this out over a beer,’ could be had, or at least attempted.

Starmer is gone now – and the abrasive noise rattling Britain’s foundations has briefly stopped; a momentary sense of hope that these great gaping chasms of left and right can slowly be bridged again – and the fleeting chance for recognition that humour, humanity and the understanding, not outlawing of perspective, is key.

Starmer couldn’t dream, but maybe we can again…