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The Road to Nowhere: Keir Starmer’s essay in obfuscation and hypocrisy

KEIR STARMER’S think piece for the Fabian Society, The Road Ahead, has been widely mocked ever since it was reported that he hoped a 14,000-word essay would get his leadership back on track.

The end product has hardly changed minds, with most responses focusing on its vacuousness (“a focus group crafted version of the Sermon on the Mount, filled with platitudes but … no content,” in the words of John McDonnell).

Nonetheless the essay is not irrelevant. Its “10 principles” — vague nostrums like “if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be rewarded fairly” — are a clear bid to replace the 10 pledges (which committed him to actual political positions such as “common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water”) that he made to secure election as leader.

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