There are precious few speeches in political history that fundamentally alter the landscape. Sir Keir Starmer’s on Monday morning will not be one of them.
It wasn’t a bad speech, though Starmer might have made it at any time in the past few years. But it was not one that changed the argument over whether he should be ousted as prime minister. Those who are demanding a “change of direction” or hoping for a glimpse of a different leader will not have found it.
He tried. There would be a change of pace, a redoubling of commitments, Labour would go further, it would go faster. It would speak for the needs of the people who rely on it. There were even a couple of nuggets to cheer his MPs, not least the commitment to renationalising what remains of British Steel. On Europe, Starmer promised much more effort to put the UK back in Europe’s heart but stopped short of rejoining the institutions that would actually do that.