Starmer vows not to quit after Labour humiliated by Green victory
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “keep fighting” following a major blow to his premiership after Labour were defeated by the Greens in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
The prime minister said the loss was “very disappointing” but insisted he understood voters are “frustrated” and “impatient for change”.
It comes after Angela Rayner said Labour’s defeat must be a “wake up call” for the party as she called for a “braver” approach to politics.
Hmm - it must be time for another dose of Hippolyte Taine.
Most of them are mere politicians, charlatans, and intriguers, third-class lawyers and doctors, literary failures, semi-educated stump-speakers, bar-room, club, or clique orators, and vulgar climbers.
Left behind in private careers, in which one is closely watched and accepted for what he is worth, they launch out on a public career because, in this business, popular suffrage at once ignorant, indifferent, is a badly informed, prejudiced and passionate judge and prefers a moralist of easy conscience, instead of demanding unsullied integrity and proven competency.
Nothing more is demanded from candidates but witty speech-making, assertiveness and showing off in public, gross flattery, a display of enthusiasm and promises to place the power about to be conferred on them by the people in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and prejudices.
Hippolyte Taine - The Modern Regime (1893)
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