Echo Comment on Keir Starmer’s reset speech after election defeats

Change. It was the one word on the front of the Labour manifesto two short years ago along with a picture of the man offering that change: Mr Starmer.

But there has been no change. Now we are back to the psychodrama that dominated the dying years of the last Tory government, wearing the country down, failing to allow it to move forward, and ultimately leading to its historic defeat.

From that period we learned that once the tide of politics turns against a leader, it cannot be turned back. Theresa May and Boris Johnson both tried resets to no avail; Liz Truss tried to reboot her cabinet after her disastrous Budget, but was soon gone.

It now feels that the tide has turned, terminally, against Mr Starmer. He has run out of resets.

He now looks like a small boat caught in the open sea in a storm. He cannot set a direction. He cannot make progress. Instead, he is at the whim of every passing wave, of every gust of wind.

Many Labour MPs now seem to be clinging to the hope that Manchester mayor Andy Burnham can somehow get himself elected to the House of Commons and take over. Yet that looks a forlorn hope – there are no safe seats for him, and there are no voters who liked to be taken advantage of by one man on the move.

In the cabinet, there seems to be only one contender: Wes Streeting. He has performed competently at health, and, unlike the unfortunate Mr Starmer, he sounds like a human. There is often in a politician’s career just one moment for a strike at the top job – will Mr Streeting take his?

If not, we are back to the dog days of the Tories, when British priorities went a-begging as they battled just to survive. It is no change at all.