 On last Friday's show, we discussed tweets from Dominic Cummings attacking Keir Starmer as an uber dud. Well, that attack has now been expanded into a 12,000 word blog post. It's titled, How could Labour win? Swap dud dead player Starmer for a Midlands woman. Shift HQ to a Tory held Midlands marginal focus on economy and crime. He says Labour should live in the village, focus on the public and marginalised trans BLM if you've forgotten how right-wing he is. And then he has a quote from Boris Johnson. Thank God I'm up against Keir and haven't got to deal with Blair or I'd be totally fucked. That's Boris Johnson in self-aware mode, speaking in July 2020. As I say, 12,000 word blog post does have, you know, a lot of interesting content. We're just going to take you through some of the key arguments. So on Starmer Cummings says he is a dead player. That means he's someone who can only act according to pre-existing scripts. He can't, you know, adapt to the moment or set the agenda. He gives a couple of examples of this. For all his babble at PMQs, there is no summary of a coherent description of Boris's catastrophic handling of the pandemic. The vaccine success and their failure to make progress has scarred them so much they've abandoned even talking about the fact the PM killed over 100,000 people while making jokes about it. And Starmer has bounced around so much and is now taken so unseriously. It's hard to see how he could do this, even if he were given the ammo by someone who knows what they're doing. He goes on, it's so basic. It's a sign of a total dud that he hasn't even tried to have an economic story, particularly when Boris has trollied around all year and deliberately ruined relations with his own chancellor, paralyzing the government's own economic story. All he can say about jobs, investments, skills and so on is flat platitudes that leave no mark on the news, never mind public consciousness. Cummings also says Starmer failed to take advantage of Johnson, saying at conference that shortages were not his problem. He said Starmer should have been hammering Boris Johnson about that. Instead, he said nothing and he calls Sir Keir, a pro-remain lawyer who floats around SW1, burbling empty platitudes, parroting every cliche about sexism, racism, trans. So psychologically incapable of challenging the system that he even supports the Met management when they're tweeting advice to women to flag down a bus while the rest of the country clutches their heads. All this is why Cummings thinks Labor should get rid of Starmer and replace him within his words, a woman from the Midlands. Perhaps Lisa Nandy, that's his suggestion. Once that leader is in place, he suggests Labor should focus on the economy and on crime. Don't focus the bulk of your activity on the NHS. The public and media will focus on the NHS. This will be good for you. Your challenge is to make progress on the public's other big priorities where you do not have big structural advantages. People already trust you on the NHS in the same way we shove Boris in a hospital throughout 2019. Lisa should always be on TV with local businesses and police. When it comes to the economy, Cummings says, as you saw there, that they should make connections with small businesses on crime. He gives a bunch of examples of how Labor should be attacking the Tories on this issue. I'll give you one example, just a sort of a taste of what is in there. So he suggests target assaults all over the country. People see serious assaults causing permanent injuries, getting joke sentences, get some examples and promise changes so severe, a load of the usual suspects attack you. The Tories will implode. David Davis will start some ludicrous civil liberties campaign, which you then hang around Boris's neck, creating more infighting and so on. Other things that Cummings advises is that Labor avoid talking about trans issues or Black Lives Matter as they make it seem like the party care about things the public don't. Aaron, I mean, it's clear that when it comes, he's quite right-wing from a lot that is written in his blog post. Is it also the case that on strategy and how one wins an election, he might be talking a bit of sense? He's won a number of campaigns, Not Go In The Euro, North East Assembly, Vote Leave and, of course, the 2019 general elections. That's four campaigns. So, you know, if he's offering general rules and laws and dictums and logic about how to win campaigns, I think it's worth listening to. Clearly, it's important to say that the specifics of what he's saying, for instance, on trans rights is nonsense. And I think to say, I think this is worth reading, isn't the same as saying, I agree with all of it. I think what he's saying is, I think, A, what he's saying in that about, for instance, trans rights is morally repugnant. I also think, strangely enough, it doesn't actually have any basis in statistical evidence in terms of what people think. All the polling thinks, for instance, generally on side with the left's view on this, that they don't think it's a hugely salient issue and you would expect that to be the case. But the idea that sort of turfs are the political common sense isn't really accurate. You know, we've done some sort of graphics about this on the Navarro media, social media and so on. I think most people have this default of live and let live. One thing I find really interesting is he refers to the 1992 Clinton campaign, and he says that the Clinton campaign had this really neat method of responding to everybody. They had these rules, healthcare, it's the economy stupid, and something else, just three, four lines. Of course, we've all heard it's the economy stupid, three or four very simple lines. And you know what this reminded me of, Michael? The 2017 Labour General Election campaign, where Labour had a great rebuttal line to strong and stable. And they said, well, actually, the Tories are strong against the weak and weak against the strong. That was Theresa May's number one line gone, redundant. Secondly, their big core vote is older people. Well, they're going to give you a dementia tax. Wow. That offered exposure on Theresa May like nothing else. Finally, for the many, not the few. Big master frame, you can point every single policy issue, you slam the Tories, you polarise it, get the majority on side. A master class from Corbyn, and actually, look, the people around him in 2017, of course, nobody in the political media in this country could say that. It's hinted at in that piece, it's hinted at. And that elegance and that sophistication and sort of basic offer, being able to insert every single criticism and policy within sort of three or four premises, which Labour did in 2017, Keir Starmer is incredibly incapable of doing. You know, when five words are due, Keir Starmer says 55. When he was on the TV yesterday, he says the government needs to get a grip. It's out of touch. I'm calling them out. I'm putting them on notice. It doesn't mean anything, Keir. And one thing that really did stick with me, finally, was the observation that when you're doing press, particularly say a piece of camera for the six o'clock news, it doesn't matter what you say. You have to understand that the media voter is watching you effectively with the volume turned off, if not literally metaphorically. And I think a perfect example of that, Michael, was immediately following the Hartley-Pawl by-election. Boris Johnson was up in Hartley-Pawl by a Royal Navy. This is a sightseeing place. I can't remember the name of the boat, a historic boat up in Hartley-Pawl, talking to people, shaking hands, being a man of the people. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer was in Westminster, nexus and folders, looking very staid, looking very uncomfortable, very claustrophobic. Now, in the minds of the people advising Keir Starmer, you look prime ministerial, you're a Westminster, you look like a proper politician. And look, people don't want a political incompetent in charge of a party, and they don't want somebody who's chaotic and crazy in charge of the country, although arguably, we've got that with Boris Johnson. But at the same time, you have to look normal. And there's this weird thing, Michael, with the Labour Centre in particular. They've internalised this massively. You have to be kind of weird and odd and incapable of communicating clearly, incapable of getting on a level with most people. They have this weird Labour-y accent, like they all talk in the same stilted, estuary English way. Rachel Reeves is the worst. And they think this is good. They think this is actually positive, and it means they're the professional politicians. What they don't grasp, and this is where I think Dominic Cummings is right, Michael, is that only about several thousand people, all of whom live in London, think that. Nobody else thinks like this. But because they all sleep with each other, have drinks with each other, go to one other's events, just talk to each other, spend Christmas with each other, and neighbours with each other, they think that is the political compass of the country. And so his suggestion of moving Labour HQ out of London, that's the first thing they should do. I totally agree. Stick it in the West Midlands, although it's important to say Michael Wigan isn't in the Midlands, probably says something about his geography, but we'll leave that to one side. You know, maybe stick it in the Northeast, but I think the West Midlands is perfect. You would have a very different set of outcomes. It's super easy, Michael, to work in SW1, to never leave Zone 1, to have quite a nice, decent lifestyle, and decent wage, living in London, and think the whole country is like that. And it's not. Now, it doesn't mean you embrace social conservatism and its anti-LGBT rants, but it does mean you identify who you need to convince and on what issues. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of wisdom in this piece. And I would say for people out there, is it worth a £10 a month on Substack? No, it's not. Subscribe to Navarro Media instead. You'll get more value from us talking about him rather than reading the thing itself. And also, Michael, finally, 12,000 words. I was reading it scrolling down. I'm thinking, Christ, when's this going to end? It was useful. Let's go to some of the interesting exchanges which resulted from that blog. We're going to go to Paul Mason's response. He says, In Dom's brain where 500,000 Labour members are just cannon fodder, the leadership would focus relentlessly on crime, anti-tran stuff and go relentlessly for swing voters. That's exactly what Labour's own focus groups also say. But the reason this cannot happen has nothing to do with Stammer being dud. It is because the party is an active coalition of social forces that do obsess with various aspects of the social liberal agenda. Cummings completely underestimates the potential power of Labour as a social coalition. The inescapability of its slow, lumbering bureaucratic modus operandi is inseparable from its power to enact change. Because ultimately, for Cummings, and here's the sad part, the reality of class struggle does not exist. Its dynamic remains mysterious as they can't be MRP polled. And so the huge and dramatic shifts that are possible once people get on the streets, irrespective of what the bureaucracy does, are not in his plain book, playbook. He goes on, Cummings, for example, thinks it's really cool that Johnson won by proroguing Parliament and lying to the Queen. He looks through the mass active resistance movement we built simply because it lost. And thus sees BLM, Me Too, Gaza, etc., as threats to narratives, to Labour's narrative, rather than opportunities. Let's look at how Dominic Cummings responded. He said, The people you need to vote for you to win agree with me that Gaza and BLM are at best distractions from the serious problems they face. You can discuss stuff like that without having it define you as a fringe. They care about their kids more than Gaza. So that's Dominic Cummings. Paul Mason replies, I'm assuming you are here discounting Britain's 3 million Muslims here when they see civilian deaths in Gaza. It's their kids they think of and ask any black person if police racism is a distraction. But your point taken, ignore our mass base and focus on Tory swing voters. Dominic Cummings responds, and stamp collecting is important to stamp people, a party seeking power, either as a debating society for graduates or trying to win. If latter you must focus, not ignore mass base, but like FDR Obama, Bill Clinton, speak to the country first. Good leaders manage this balance. Aaron, what do you make of this idea? Paul Mason saying it's actually the bureaucratic slowness of labour that gives it its strength to change things. Do you buy that? I just think he's talking nonsense, Michael. I just don't understand what Paul was saying anymore, personally. What's class struggle? Class struggle is 5,000 people saying stop the coup in Westminster. 5,000 people is the class struggle. Mostly graduates, mostly under 40. That's the class struggle, really. Well, class struggle is mostly 30 guys in nice suits going into media green rooms as part of a multi-million pound campaign to stop Brexit called The People's Phone. Was that the class struggle? Come on. I don't agree with everything he said. I think the way to look at Dominic Cummings and his output is to say that on the specifics, I think he can be wildly wrong. But actually, when he's talking about general laws and dynamics and ways of doing things, historical examples, I think he's really sharp. I thought Paul's response to him made zero sense to me. And Dominic Cummings, he's very heterodox. I don't agree with a great deal of what he says. He gets you thinking. That used to be Paul Mason. It isn't anymore. I hope that changes because I think Paul read that piece and thought, oh, that's the kind of thing I want to be doing for the left. He went through this phase of about two years saying, here's what Corbyn should do. Here's what the left should do. And let's be honest, that's not journalism. It's not a feature. It's not a reportage. It's still interesting. I've written pieces like that. He clearly wants to become the guru for the left in a way that Cummings has for the right. And that's not happened. So there's a little bit of resentment shining through, I think, Michael. I have to say, I do agree a lot more with Dominic Cummings just like yourself, even though my politics are nowhere near his and there are many substantial arguments I disagree with that he makes. Paul Mason is the person who said, if you don't understand Keir Starmer as being labor leader, you're failing to grasp social democracy from a Marxist perspective. I mean, it's just, these are just words. It just doesn't mean anything.