Labour’s solid poll lead under Keir Starmer is preferable to the crowd-pleasing leadership style of Jeremy Corbyn, say Richard Skues, Val Stevens, Colin Price and Paddy Eckersley. But Michael Bowers disagrees
The thrust of Andrew Fisher’s lament about Keir Starmer’s performance seems to be that even though Labour has a 20-point opinion poll lead, he is boring and unable to generate the crowd enthusiasm that Jeremy Corbyn did, either prior to losing the 2017 election or the more crushing defeat of 2019 (Where’s Labour’s fervour? Can you imagine a crowd chanting ‘Oh, Keir Starmer’?, 14 December).
He fails to point out that at no time during this period of apparent adulation did Corbyn maintain any significant poll lead. In the bigger scheme of things, the polls and the election results were in alignment. Fisher is right that Labour’s current poll lead may shrink and the result of the next general election is far from assured. But possibly two years away from that moment, given a choice between a crowd chanting “Oh, Keir Starmer” and a sizeable and sustained poll lead, I know which I’d opt for.
Richard Skues
Winchmore Hill, London