Sometimes a single act changes the entire course of events for years to come.
For instance, many Manchester United football fans fondly recall the moment in 1990 that a young striker called Mark Robins scored a crucial goal in an FA Cup tie that saved the job of Alex Ferguson, who had at that stage not won a trophy three seasons into his tenure.
So might Tory supporters point in future years to Keir Starmer’s disastrous mishandling of the anti-Semitic comments of his Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali as the moment that changed the game for them? In short, no.
Starmer’s flip-flopping and lack of principle is already, as financial market analysts say, ‘priced in’. Voters have noticed his U-turns on everything from trans rights to green investment and do not expect him to do the right thing at first contact with any problem.
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