From Sarah Baxter in today’s Times (and echoing what I’ve been saying for weeks)
“ Clever though Starmer is at the thrust and parry of politics, in line with his experience as a barrister, we know very little about what he really thinks of the coronavirus crisis, except that the Tories have got it wrong on everything.
Should the nation have gone into lockdown earlier? Yes, of course, in hindsight, but Starmer didn’t have the vision or nerve to mention it at the time. Should we now re-emerge as quickly as possible — or hang back, as the obdurate union barons advise, under the guise of ensuring the safety of their members? This is not simply a practical question but a hard choice for Labour.
Whose side is Starmer on? Organised labour — the old Labour aristocracy — or the poorest in society, who are the worst affected by the crisis, as well as the future millions threatened by unemployment? Does he agree with the 50 Labour councils and the teaching unions, which are dragging their feet over the reopening of schools, or support the trapped children who are missing out on their education? And will the young who form the bedrock of Labour’s vote continue to back the party if their life chances are stifled?
In an interview in the Telegraph yesterday, Starmer pointedly noted that his own children are at school (his wife is a key worker in the NHS). It sent an important moral signal to Mary Bousted of the National Education Union and her colleagues to stop their petty political point-scoring and put pupils first (she described children on a private Zoom call as “mucky” germ spreaders who “wipe their snot on your trousers or your dress”).
Yet his solution — a taskforce made up of teaching unions, parents, local authorities and government — would take weeks if not months to reach an agreement, while the economic and social consequences of the lockdown continue to mount”.
