Keir Starmer wasn’t ousted by his own Party for what he did or didn’t do, but for what he is, and what he isn’t. He is a quintessentially North London middle class professional, and a very successful one.
Public Prosecutions is not a job area requiring charisma or communication skills , other than cerebral ones. Guilt is determined not on belief or even principle but on facts.
In the world of politics facts are often unclear and disputed. Success is within the constraints of what is “possible”. Bismarck said further that “politics is not an exact science”. But Starmer’s previous world had to be. English law never had a “Not proven” verdict. And they’ve removed it in Scotland. It has to be binary.
But politics is not binary as well as not being exact. Which brings complex factors into play. “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election” (Bismarck again). In the legal system lying is perjury and an offence. In politics lying is sometimes downgraded to just being “economical with the actualité”. Ask Tony Blair.
Despite being surrounded by liars Starmer wasn’t very good at it. For the likes of Boris Johnson (a journalist not a lawyer) truth was negotiable. Starmer did try political pragmatism (i.e. misleading us with borderline untruths ) but didn’t have Boris’s skillset.
If you’re going in opposition to lambast others for having the dark arts then when in office playing them (badly) yourself you invite the charge of hypocrisy. Starmer had a bewildered look at times as he tried to play a game the rules of which he didn’t understand, and was possibly even unaware.
Rab Butler, an able and principled politician, called his autobiography “The Art of the Possible” an acknowledgement, perhaps, that able though he was his principles were not bendable enough to reach the very top. Starmer on the other hand tried to be Groucho Marx (“These are my principles , but if you don’t like them I have others”). It didn’t work.
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 