Political Cynic comments.

The mendacity of The Times is always dependable: a review of ‘Red Knight, The unauthorized biography of Sir Keir Starmer’ by Michael Ashcroft titled ‘The mendacity of hope’ :Labour on the road back to electability’ by Donald Macintyre, his political credentials:

a former chief political commentator of the Independent and the author of Mandelson and the Making of New Labour, 2000

Mr. Macintyre knows the Party Line on Corbyn:

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Much of the optimism that informed that decision has since eroded, and the disapproval goes well beyond the Corbynite Left, whose members rallied behind Starmer’s rival in last year’s contest, Rebecca Long-Bailey (the Beckett du jour).

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Not only were May’s treaty negotiations with the EU persistently undermined by those same Tory MPs, Johnson foremost among them, but it is also far from clear that Corbyn, despite his own instinctive pro-Brexit leanings, would have been ready to provoke charges of sleeping with the enemy by making such a deal with May. Though the talks were led by Starmer, Corbyn was represented by Seumas Milne and Andrew Fisher, reporting directly to the Labour leader. Corbyn finally abandoned them on May 17, 2019, a week before May resigned.

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The scale of the opposition leader’s main task in Brighton – to exorcize the spectre of Corbynism – shouldn’t be underestimated.

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Abandoning an ill-prepared proposal to return to the “electoral college” of unions, MPs and party members, Starmer has instead concentrated on raising the number of MPs required to nominate a candidate, thus making it more difficult for someone from the Corbynite Left to throw their hat into the ring.

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The mendacity of hope

Mr. Macintyre’s manages, in a very long ‘review’ by TLS standards, to realize rhetorically, the fact that Starmer is out of his depth. An almost a perfect reflection of Mrs. May ? But who can match the lupine charms of Tony Blair ?

Political Cynic