Over almost 30 years in and around Westminster, I’ve noted some persistent and essential differences in the culture and mindset of our two big political parties. Tories generally want to win elections, and are prepared to subordinate pretty much all else to that objective. How else to explain their regular mutation into a new form of political life every few years? Today’s hybrid with a right-populist body and a technocrat-centrist head is just the latest example.
Labour, by contrast, always has an ambivalent attitude to winning. Buried in the party’s soul is the fear that winning means compromising on principles, and is therefore to be avoided. How else to explain those Labour people who still celebrate Jeremy Corbyn’s disastrous leadership as a golden age for the party?
Today, the pragmatic side of the Labour soul and organisation has taken the upper hand
In this context, Keir Starmer is fairly typical of the Labour mindset.
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