Aditya Chakrabortty

These are bad metaphors for the leading politician in the country to be trapped inside.

But in the end, what they speak to is,

It's a sense that just being competent, just looking serious, just saying platitudes and cliches because that's what you think politics is, that's not enough.

You actually need to do stuff.

I think that's a really important question.

There's a whole kind of politics which is about being authentic and that basic politics is an authentocracy and you've just got to be true to yourself and just say what you think and be unfiltered and all the rest of it.

That's a very difficult position for a centre-left politician to be in.

If you think about where the Labour Party has been over the past 15 years before it got into power again in 2024,

It tried being a bit soft left under Ed Miliband.

Didn't win.

It tried being a bit further to the left under Jeremy Corbyn.

Glorious defeat.

And then it tried being a sort of nothing-y blancmange.

And it got into power largely because of Liz Truss.

Liz Truss got into power and she messed up the economy.

And after that, people said, right, I had enough Tories.

Just going to vote for anyone else.

So if you are Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves, these people, you think, I don't really know what the public want from me, right?

And to some extent, you see that in the pronouncements that Keir Starmer's made since the local elections, whether it's a speech this week or the remarks he made directly after results, is I'm going to be really true to myself and I'm going to do all these things.

And you think, well, what took you so long, boy?