SO-CALLED ‘sensible’ Labour supporters think any tawdry compromise or pandering to Sun readers is genius-level political strategy. Here’s how to be one of these tiresome twats.
Keep saying ‘We need to win first’
Labour can’t do much unless it wins the election, you point out correctly. But what Keir Starmer’s critics are saying – obviously – is that they’d quite like some vaguely progressive policies. Ignore this and just repeat ‘We need to win first’ endlessly. It shows you’re a realist, and thus superior to naive left-wing dreamers with their fanciful plans to rebuild some schools.
Sing the praises of ‘grown-up’ politics
In practice this tends to mean not spending any money and being ‘civil’ to Tories who’ll happily impoverish people on benefits and then have the nerve to come out with some bullshit about a bag of potatoes costing 55p. None of that matters, you just like being one of the ‘grown-ups’, even if you sound like one of those weird 20-year-olds whose sole ambition is to become a buy-to-let landlord.
Believe Starmer is more left-wing
Firmly believe Starmer will institute a raft of left-wing (but not too left-wing) policies once he’s in power. Don’t worry that there is absolutely no evidence for this, and if he’s terrified about upsetting the right-wing press now, why get the Mail, Sun and Times to make his premiership a waking nightmare in a year’s time? Strangely, to believe this, you’ll have to…
Convince yourself lying is good
Yes. Sir Keir is playing a brilliant game of deceit. This is probably the first time in history anyone’s tried to categorise lying as genuinely good, with the exception of people like conmen, Machievelli and Goebbels. Strangely none of these are held up as role models.
Admire some very strange choices of politician
Only in Labour Sensible Land would the incredibly bland private health buff Wes Streeting be considered an exciting new talent. You’re also undoubtedly keen on Jess Phillips, whose love-in with Jacob Rees-Mogg was the worst kind of nauseating Westminster chumminess. If the casual Channel 4 News viewer realised years ago he’s an arrogant, extremely right-wing oddball doing actual, real harm with his policies, why didn’t Jess? Still, she got on TV, and that’s what matters.
Develop a weird interest in patriotism
Like Starmer, you feel people should be proud of their country. Okay, whatever. It’s just that it’s hard to convert cheering for the Lionesses into reducing NHS waiting lists. In any case patriotism is always a time-wasting dead end for Labour, as the most patriotic patriots prefer the full-fat version with some rabid xenophobia and, in a perfect world, mass deportations at gunpoint.
Absolutely (still) hate Corbyn with a vengeance
Okay, Jezza was never going to win enough non-leftie voters. But he’s gone now. He really has. In fact he went in 2019. You don’t need to point out how terrible he was every single day. Does he still haunt your nightmares, like Freddy Krueger but with the far more terrifying threat of inviting you to a pro-Palestinian fundraiser?
