‘Authority is like virginity. Once it’s gone, it’s gone’: Inside Keir Starmer’s downfall
Years ago, Peter Mandelson shared a key lesson with his protégé Morgan McSweeney. Reminiscing about his involvement in Labour’s 1987 general election campaign, he called it the ‘spray-paint election’. The manifesto was a ‘beautiful technicolour’ document but the tax-and-spend shibboleths of Old Labour remained, along with the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. ‘I spray-painted the old Ford Cortina,’ Mandelson told McSweeney, ‘but it was still a Cortina. Policy is at the heart of political communication.’ Only after the election – a second three-figure landslide defeat – did Labour launch a policy review, out of which New Labour emerged. Even then it took another decade to win power.
