>>Why are potential Labour voters not embracing Keir Starmer?
I believe SKS is intelligent, capable and decent - all very good qualities for a leader. But there is no doubt that there is something lacking in his communication.
It's possible that he is just too scripted. If you watch MPs speak in the chamber, the best, to my mind, are very well prepared, and likely to have notes or cue cards, but not reading a text. Even in interview, he tends to trot out a prepared phrase which I and I am sure others find irritating.
Watching this speech by SKS, actually one of his better ones reading the dispatch box, it sounds to me like an article - it would be great in print, but it doesn't sound like natural speech.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWzLZ-UZ4AY
Of course appearance, voice, emphasis etc all play a part but if he is going to read - which is fine - the final edit should be translated into oratory. He sounds like what he is - a lawyer setting out a case, in which what matters most is the content. When Johnson is at his most engaging, there is often no relevant content at all!
My very right wing neighbour thinks SKS is an upper class twit and that Johnson is a man of the people. That can only be about manner and style. There's very little wrong with Starmer, and I think he has almost all of what it takes, but he has to get elected...
Nobody likes the idea of being schooled into an unnatural style that is not their own, but I think he could be sorted out a bit.
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