DOES it matter Keir Starmer tore up the “10 pledges” that got him elected Labour leader? His centrist defenders say this is just grown-up politics-as-normal. It’s just some sad butthurt lefties moaning.

But this is precisely the problem: Starmer abandoning his pledges is politics-as-normal. But relentless Tory victories are also politics-as-normal.

Working people paying for every crisis is politics-as-normal.

Unpicking and marketisation of public services is politics-as-normal. Social reform is a break with the norm. Starmer being a “normal” politician who “normally” tears up his promises is likely to cause him damage well beyond Labour members.

Starmer ran as Labour leader promising a toned-down, but still left-wing programme, made up of 10 “pledges.”

Starmer has openly abandoned the pledge “Public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders” and there should be “common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water” and an “end” to “outsourcing in our NHS” and other public services.  

Starmer’s fumbled attempt to ban ministers from picket lines has made a mockery of his promise to “work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people.”

Starmer has also distanced himself from pledges on the “abolition of tuition fees,” to “increase income tax for the top 5 per cent of earners” and it is hard to imagine Starmer introducing a “Prevention of Military Intervention Act” now.

Billy Bragg complained he “voted for Starmer on the strength of the pledges he made during the leadership campaign” and felt “I’ve been duped.”

Times pundit David Aaronovitch told Bragg that Starmer was just doing the “normal” thing, that “the phenomenon of facing to the party to win leadership positions and then to the country to win elections is almost universal. I think plenty of those voting for Starmer understood that.” Aaronovitch claimed Starmer did “more or less what every intelligent observer expected.”

Somehow, though, if you look back to press coverage at the time, the mainstream media reported Starmer’s pledges as the real deal, not a disposable plan. While many on the left warned Stamer’s pledges were dishonest, that wasn’t what the newspapers said.  

The Times reported Starmer’s “10 pledges” with no sense they were fake. The Observer reported Starmer’s “backers believed” there was a “danger” Starmer “a London MP and star barrister with a square jaw and smart suits, would be seen in the Labour heartlands as another Blairite in left-wing clothing.”  

But they said this danger was avoided, quoting Corbyn-turned-Starmer supporter Laura Parker to say Starmer “has said there will be no rolling back from a radical programme — and I, like others who supported Corbyn, backed him on the basis of the policy commitments he had in his 10 pledges.”

The Observer certainly didn’t say that his backers feared Starmer would be exposed as “another Blairite in left-wing clothing” because that’s what he was, and that you couldn’t trust his pledges.

Either the top reporters did not “expect” Starmer to ditch his pledges, or they did, but wanted to pretend otherwise, because they were in on the scam.

Neither is a good result for the media: either naive about Starmer, or playing along with a deception. Fools or liars isn’t a great choice.

But does it matter. Politics Professor Steven Fielding said Starmer had ditched his pledges but “hardly anybody noticed outside the Labour Party” and “nobody cares.”

There is a view Starmer’s crude manoeuvre is a kind of clever, Machiavellian trick. The only people who got kidded were Labour Party members.

But there is a naivety to this supposedly “savvy” point.

First, Starmer has demobilised and demotivated Labour members, and this will count. The pledges would have given him an ideological consistency and a coherent way to argue with the government, instead of the current wobbling and wavering.

Second, it is naive to think Starmer’s dishonesty won’t hurt him down the line. Starmer hopes that by being “pragmatic,” he will neutralise harsher attacks from the press. The City and media won’t see him as such a danger. They won’t be so hard on him.

There is some truth in this. The right-wing media prefer a right-wing Labour leader, but they much prefer a Tory one. They will use any stick to beat Starmer in an election.

If you want to stich people up, it’s not clever to do it in public. The hundreds of thousands of stitched-up Labour members are part of the public, not hived off in a separate enclosure.

There is a strong chance the Tories will use Starmer’s dishonesty against him in an election. They will tell it differently from the left. It won’t be about being a sell-out and letting down the workers. Instead, it will be about picturing Starmer as untrustworthy, slippery, ready to say anything.  

Even the message “all politicians can’t be trusted; all politicians are the same” helps the Tories. The “party of change” has to prove all politicians are actually not the same, and that change is possible. The “conservative” party can hang onto power just through voter cynicism.

You can get a little feel of this from The Sun, which in June reported Starmer was “ripping up all Labour’s policies and starting again.”

Mostly The Sun gave the impression it approved — the kind of neutral media Starmer wants. But The Sun couldn’t help making a dig, noting “Sir Keir Starmer yesterday declared himself a blank space.”

Attacking Starmer over his pledges bubbles under in the right-wing ecosystem. The “Guido Fawkes” website often tests Tory attack lines and keeps returning to the theme.

In July the Spectator went for a “Why should anyone trust Keir Starmer” attack over the abandoned pledges: The Spectator doesn’t care about the substance of the pledges, but can use themes of “dishonesty," especially as Starmer is trying to lead on “trust in politicians” and his own integrity in lieu of actual policies.

Last year the Independent had a headline “Starmer: I’m ready to break pledges to make Labour electable.” It’s supposed to sound super pragmatic, but is a massive contradiction: You must make pledges to get elected, but if you announce pledges are disposable, how does that work?

It’s a bit of a pump and dump for Starmer. The right and centrist media encouraged Starmer to break his pledges to Labour members, but will later attack him for being two-faced over the same pledges.