Agree. I see Labour’s failure as embodied in Starmer. It’s not only that he’s a terrible, uninspiring communicator - and an unpleasant man in his blame-throwing sneery way - but what he’s an expression of.
Labour is, and everyone can see it, a middle class project of patronising, sloganeering finger waggers. Very few people feel any affinity with these Islington technocrats.
Labour is obsessed with wonk-driven legislation and fashionable causes. Their attempts at the common touch - remember Reeves’s penny off a pint? - are so obviously contrived that people ignore them. They’re rightly seen as phoney.
Starmer thinks it’s great that we go net-zero, look up to international courts and have digital id. Nobody gives a fuck about those unless they live in Labour north London or on a houseboat.
The most successful governments like Thatcher’s and Blair’s made people feel they were on the voters’ side. They had values and visions (especially Thatcher) that were obvious and down to earth. You can’t make everyone happy but you can carry most with you if they believe you’re sincere, consistent and have goals that all can understand.