Starmer the Establishment man has no idea how to see off an insurgent like Polanski

Zohran Mamdani’s triumph in the New York mayoral election illustrates a truth equally perceptible on this side of the Atlantic. Large numbers of activists and voters are yearning to kick the Establishment, and are disposed to do so by supporting soclalist candidates.

Mamdani presents himself as the champion of working-class Americans who find New York impossibly expensive. His remedies may prove useless, but at least he has recognised that the cost of living is for many people an agonising and intractable problem.

In the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn for a time alarmed the Establishment by showing he could mobilise very large numbers of voters, at the 2017 general election almost 13 million of them, enough to deny Theresa May the crushing victory she had expected, and to pave the way for her slow and agonising downfall.

At the general election at the end of 2019, Boris Johnson saw off Corbyn by being a more gifted insurgent than he was. “Get Brexit done” was a brilliant way to infuriate the Establishment, which saw this as the collapse of civilisation.

The Labour vote fell by eight percentage points, and out went Corbyn. Sir Keir Starmer was nevertheless only able to succeed him as Labour leader by promising to uphold Corbyn’s policies.

Johnson proved unable to make the difficult transition from insurgent, who thrives by breaking the rules, to commander of the regular forces of the state, in whom rule-breaking becomes intolerable.

One might have thought Starmer, with his conformist temperament and professional ability to take whatever brief he is given, would be better suited to the role of leader of the Establishment.

But after little more than a year as Prime Minister, he finds himself in what could well be terminal difficulties. He has disgusted the hundreds of thousands of Momentum activists who flocked to Corbyn’s banner, without enthusing the Establishment he now commands.

It has become obvious that the commander has no plan. He just does what he thinks the Establishment would like him to do.

And the dreadful truth is that the Establishment, of which he is supposed to be the leader, does not know what it wants him to do.

At the heart of the state there is a vacuum. Starmer goes through the motions, but is in the position of a barrister who has received no instructions from his client.

He does not know what to say, so takes refuge in meaningless phrases. Can anyone pretend in the last year to have looked forward with eager anticipation to a speech by Starmer?

These thoughts were prompted by writing a piece about the new leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, printed in this week’s Spectator. Polanski has with impressive agility occupied some of the territory vacated by Starmer.

He advocates socialist policies, most eye-catchingly a tax on billionaires, and presents himself as the champion of plumbers and hairdressers, hard-working people to whom Starmer and Rachel Reeves have nothing to say except “we’re going to put up your taxes”.

Nor do the Conservatives yet have anything very persuasive to say to plumbers and hairdressers. No plan has yet been developed for cutting the bloated size of the state and bringing taxes back down.

Labour claims to be going to build the houses which are needed, but shows scant sign of knowing how to do so. The Conservatives had 14 years to get it done, but no Harold Macmillan to do it.

Millions of people find themselves condemned to pay such extortionate rents for such horrible little flats or houses that they are short of money for everything else, especially at a time of rising prices.

What hope have they of saving the deposit needed in order to buy somewhere? Only those with rich parents or grandparents, or unusually well-paid jobs, can hope to do so.

Here is a rich source of discontent for populists to exploit. They can appeal to a large and angry audience. It is pointless to blame Polanski, or indeed Nigel Farage, for doing so.

Many activists who used to back Corbyn, and now back Polanski, feel angry, and are looking for any excuse to express their anger.

The most innocuous joke at their hero’s expense produces a torrent of abuse. There are a lot of angry, disappointed Momentum people out there, and Starmer has not the slightest idea how to deal with them.

Let us leave for another day the question of whether Kemi Badenoch can do any better with the angry, disappointed Reform people out there.