A lesson in opposition: Starmer confronted by frustrated publican

Starmer needs to be lectured about the damage his party has helped to inflict on this nation, otherwise his ego will lead to further resentment and anger. 

Cartoon by Crid.

With a bi-partisan majority in favour of draconian lockdowns, Britain is a de facto one-party state. The uncharismatic and non-confrontational ‘Opposition’ leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has challenged the Government in the manner that any high-flying city-lawyer would: by straining his vision to look at the small print. 

Starmer’s key objection to the lockdowns is that they weren’t introduced sooner. At no point has the helm of ‘the party of the working class’ expressed anger at the Government for not taking into account the impact on people’s jobs and incomes due to lockdown. The Labour party was first pulled into power by grassroots labour unions which were fed sunlight by socially cohesive working-class communities, and now the new generation has voted to criminalise normal human contact. 

But as has been seen across the political landscape over the past few years, if the elected class does not back the needs of the people, the people first become politically homeless. Then, when the time is right, full-blown electoral vigilantes.

This scenario played out yesterday, when Starmer was confronted by life-long Labour voter Rod Humphris, the owner of a pub in the city of Bath, who had to be held back by security guards after screaming at Starmer ‘to get out of my Pub’. 

Many Conservative voters who handed Prime Minister Boris Johnson a landslide in December must feel like a knife has been lodged into their backs, but many Labour voters have had the rug pulled from under their feet. They have had their voice boxes yanked from their throats, and their muscle in Parliament deflated like a balloon. Who is there to speak for them? 

Humphris’ business is, no doubt like countless others, in dire straits. Pubs were closed for many months until the industry was given crumbs by Whitehall decree declaring that only pub gardens could re-open. Humphris questioned why the ongoing restrictions were necessary, mentioning that the average age of a Covid death nearly mirrors the age of life expectancy in this country (it’s slightly higher, in fact). 

But politicians nowadays don’t take the concerns of their own electorate to heart, and instead exploit the opportunity to grand-stand on their own self-anointed virtuous platform. Starmer’s was the sledgehammer that has been wielded this past year: the NHS. Starmer quipped that NHS staff ‘have been on the front-line keeping people alive’, before going full elitist by muttering ‘so I really don’t need lectures from you about this pandemic. Thank you.’ 

I don’t think Humphris is a life-time Labour voter anymore, nor do I think Starmer understands the purpose of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition. Starmer needs to be lectured about the damage his party has helped to inflict on this nation, otherwise his ego will lead to further resentment and anger.