Originally Posted by
Keyser Soze
Although I voted for New Labour in 1997 and was happy with them in 2001 (but voted Plaid), I tend to agree to a degree. I predicted long ago that when Sunak was running, that he would never win an election as a PM. Nor would Truss.
What makes a good leader?
To make such an easy conclusion, I found that looking at leaders or potential leaders through the prism of "The Three P's" is always useful. An ex-girlfriend who studied PPE at Oxford once told me this, which I found convincing, and was able to relate to history. Three P's are...
1. Personality (can be charm, strength, competence and credibility / trust to get things done. Or a mix.)
2. Policy (Relevant to the issues of the day, popular, or effective)
3. Persuasion - a good debater, through logic, emotion, ethics, or good as selling the positives/negatives
Usually, if you compare opponents (party leaders at an election, or an internal leadership competition), the one that fairs best on most of them versus their opponent will win, most of the time. It is a relative game, not absolute.
Sunak - one of many poor leaders
For that reason, I could never understood Sunak nor Truss as selections. Neither score highly on any of the 3 P's for me. Sunak nether had good policy, personality nor persuasion skills. He is the opposite in fact. Irrelevant policy, boring and staid, and argues poorly on most things. It is for the same reason, The Three P's, that Thatcher and Blair maintained their premierships for so long, because they had all three in the bag. Cameron was strong because he had 1 and 3, and debatable on 2. Contrastingly, at the lower end of the spectrum, Corbyn , Hague, Miliband, and Duncan Smith were examples of where they had none, or only one of the three Ps. Versus their opponent they stood no chance. At a personal level, I would have preferred to watch the cheese growing on my helmet than listen to any of that last list.
I never understood why the Conservatives did not choose Penny Mordaunt. She had 1 and 3. She was also the most popular with grass roots by a country mile vs Truss or Starmer, a clear winner v Starmer in opinion polls with the public, and a clear favourite for PM across the board. I think she would have put Starmer to bed. Not a hammering perhaps, but a win.
The Truss votes were the 1922 committee of lobbying MPs to stop Mordaunt, as the offshore hedge funds were the biggest donors both Sunak and Truss's campaign, and also the biggest beneficiaries of the hit on the pound and the gilts market fall as a result of that mess. Corruption maximus. The 1922 Commitee did their dirty bidding by getting MPs to vote for Truss to edge out Mordaunt.
Starmer
Starmer started off with none of the Three P's in place. And with no track record, I think that explained is weaker polling. It is no co-incidence that he has started building the three P's, and polls have accelerated for him. What startles me more than anything is that for a QC he is poor on Persuasion. It is odd he got so far in the field od a barrister like that. But then he was a government / public sector barrister, so perhaps he doesn't have the might you would expect from a private sector barrister, who will only be paid in accordance to his wins. A government / public sector barrister gets his pay regardless of performance. Politics and arse-kissing is the weapon of choice in the civil service, rather than performance. So on Persuasion I rank him low.
But he has build his Personality in the sense of being competent and trusted. He set out to purge the Hard / Extreme Left. Achieved. He set out to kill off the anti-semites. Achieved. And seemed ruthless too, which shows a bit of steel: needed for a leader. He has now started to work on Policy too: a sensible set of plans with Reeves which the City is giving a cautious thumbs up to.
Thankfully he deserves credit for putting the anti-semitic mob, and the crazy Palestinian supporters, back to bed for their little bedtime story. Instead, he is now receiving mentoring from the heavily funded NGO organisation called the Tony Blair Institute (TBI). Blair and Mandelson are giving Starmer their 1997 playbook: don't say too much, let the opponents panic and collapse, don't risk the polls - aim for the centre. People can say what they like about Blair and Mandelson, and personally I now hate them, as they care little for the UK's interests. They are globalists, in hock to the World Economic Forum / Davos massive, and the puppets of the European Union. But I recognise that they are brilliant at what they do: strategy, planning, communications, ruthlessness, and most of all - serial election winners. Their strategy is working again. Apparently, Gordon Brown and Alistair Campbell have also been lending some close advice. So my take is that Starmer will be a centrist.
So comparing to Sunak on the Three P's, Starmer does have 2 of the 3 P's either in the bag, or building. 2-0 to Starmer v Sunak, in that sense. I think this explains the widening gap in the polls. As I have predicted since he came in, Rich-y Soon-Out will have his skinny short arse handed to him by Starmer.
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