It's Not His Style Of Communication, It's The Fact You Can't Believe Anything He Says

That's his real problem, Andy.

...the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent wage stagnation and the cost of living crisis ended that semi-contented apathy. The public appetite for frank politicians, which had never completely gone away – as was shown in Britain by the enduring popularity of vivid communicators such as Tony Benn – started to grow again, until it became a hunger so powerful that politics changed to sate it.

Changed for the better, or worse, Andy? 

Wider social, cultural and technological shifts have added to the value of clear political communication. The decline of deference and formal manners, and the creation of uninhibited digital spaces and networks, have given us a world of outrageous YouTubers and indiscreet voice notes, unbuttoned podcasts and confessional pop songs with the vocals mixed so high that you can hear the singer breathing.

And how does that translate to the buyer’s remorse of all those Labour voters realising they’ve ended up with a very unwanted pig in a poke in Starmer? 

Against the backdrop of all this intimate – or intimate-seeming – public communication, a typically formal Keir Starmer speech or statement, while appropriate for delicate foreign policy work such as his trip to China, in a domestic context sounds almost as out of date and incomprehensible to many voters as a politician from the 1950s.

It’s time for the government to speak differently. That won’t necessarily save it, so numerous are its enemies and problems. But at least Labour will be back in the conversation.

But it’s plain now - to anyone with two brain cells, anyway - that the problem isn't with what Starmer says or how he says it. It's that whatever it is, it's invariably a lie.