Keir Starmer and the Ten Pledges

A politician's presenting a leftish platform with the intent of outflanking an opponent who is actually more leftish, or winning over vacillating leftist voters, and then in the spirit of "adults-in-the-room," "electability"-minded pragmatism dispensing with that platform, has been Standard Operating Procedure for center-left parties through the neoliberal era.

What distinguishes Keir Starmer's conduct in regard to said platform--his ten pledges--is how quickly and brazenly he ditched his pledges, which underlines the centrist ideologue's stance in regard to such matters.

I think the relevant bits can be boiled down to three principles, namely:

1. Politics is for professionals--and the general public is unfit to judge what professionals do beyond casting its vote for one of the (two) candidates presented it on the ballot on election day, without whining about how little they differ because from a centrist standpoint that's a feature, not a bug. (Yay, consensus!)

2. Politics is a pragmatic activity, not an ethical activity--and so complaining about a politician's breaking promises out of bounds is simple-minded, unrealistic and illegitimate. And finally, in line with the extension of this principle not only to the methods of politicians but the content of politics,

3. Politics should be civil rather than ideological--making the left and its principles inherently illegitimate, and anything done to defeat it, like making and breaking a bunch of lefty promises, not just acceptable, but a duty for a responsible, electable, adult-in-the-room politician who, as he constantly says, WANTS TO BE PRIME MINISTER!

Of course, not everyone feels the same way about all of this--and it is not for nothing that, in 2022, Starmer eschews Tony Blair's blatant disrespect for Old Labour and open disdain for talk about class and inequality, blending his centrist positions with gestures toward something more leftward, which on close inspection proves to be radical rhetoric, not radical policies (Starmer banging on about the 1 percent as if he were some Occupy Wall Street activist, and then proving himself New Labour to the core).