Sir Keir Starmer's early speech impediment has not helped Labour's chances in the next general election election — any harm Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley/Daily Telegraph < p>The Tories want to fight the next presidential election: Rishi Sunak against Sir Keir Starmer. How they must have groaned when a protester burst onto the stage and showered the Labor leader with glitter.
For Sir Keir's image-makers, it might as well have been the stardust sparkling in his gray bangs, giving such impetus to a speech that might otherwise have gone unnoticed by the TikTok generation.
Instead of discovery Sir Keir shrugged off a bad joke about his favorite football team, Arsenal, as he planned, waved off the break, took off his sparkling jacket and rolled up his sleeves to get to work.
His public loved it. That, and the glitter bombing, gave social media the perfect 15-second spot that will be viewed countless times on the mobile phones of the young voters Labor needs to energize.
Conservative strategists (and pollsters) insist voters are still undecided about Sir Keir, so they believe they can win if the battlefield is personal.
Suggesting that the fight with the electoral reform activist gave Sir Keir an injection of charisma may be putting it too strongly, but it certainly gave him the chance to show he was calm in a crisis. Actually, this is exactly what voters want from the Prime Minister.
On policy, Sir Keir was vague. He talked about economic growth, safer streets, nationalizing energy, fixing the NHS and planning a reform he called «Mission Government». Such meaningless phrases are no substitute for detail, but no opposition leader a year before an election would offer his best ideas as free gifts to the ruling party, so his job was simply to assume the appearance of a future prime minister. .
To the dismay of the Conservatives, the biggest cheer in the conference room came when Sir Keir reminded delegates that he had “pulled out anti-Semitism by the roots”. What a transformation from the early days of his government, when the current bloodshed in Israel and the Gaza Strip would have seen some delegates waving Palestinian flags.
When he said the Labor Party was «no longer a party of protest», he indicated his greatest achievement as leader: cleaning up the Momentum Party, ridding the conference of what were often called «headbangers», and turning his party into a party that wants to govern.
In the past, Labor Party conferences seemed like little more than an annual Tory hatefest. This year's event included side events where politics were debated, debated and tested in an undeniably adult way. The atmosphere was businesslike, not shouty.
A protester brings sparkle to the Labor Party conference. Photo: PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images Dim is not a threat
Boring? Maybe. But a boring party isn't a threat either, and if voters no longer see Labor as dangerous, they'll be more likely to give it a chance at government as the political pendulum demands.
After 13 years in power, Rishi Sunak needs to give voters an extremely compelling reason to give the Conservatives an unprecedented fifth term. So far, polls show that he did not do this.
Mr Sunak's strategy is also based on Sir Keir giving voters a reason not to vote for Labor, and Sir Keir knows this, hence his relentless strategy.
There were several Labor base crowd pleasers in his speech , such as banning zero-hours contracts and ending homelessness status. But he also spoke about NHS reform, the benefits of private enterprise and the desire for politicians to «carefully influence people's lives» by trying to be all things to all voters.
This is the opening joke about Arsenal winning over title rivals Manchester City 1-0 at the weekend was a predictable remark as he expressed his condolences to Manchester for having to host the Conservative Party conference last week.
Football fans in the audience knew that the game was also tiring: there were almost no shots on goal from both sides. In a month's time, however, all that will be remembered is the result: the Reds beat the Blues, and if Sir Keir makes it into Downing Street, no Labor supporter will care how he got there.
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