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While we are doing our autopsies of Keir Starmer’s unimpressive premiership, I’d like to suggest he is a prime example of a certain personality type that causes us problems. He has been a high achiever his whole life. From the 11+ onwards he passed tests and ascended every hierarchy he found himself in. This, I believe, shaped his worldview in a way that made him absolutely unsuited for the office. For Starmer, you accept the rules of the system, you play the game, and when you win you get rewards. Number 10 was just the last objective that he earned by mechanically playing society like a video game - it was his by right for ticking all the boxes correctly. His visible confusion and inability to grasp the job of actual leadership is, I think, a result of never having had to deal with the world beyond whichever social game he was playing at the time. Law is such a bounded game where a rigid, goal oriented thinker like Starmer can and did thrive. A better leader would be someone who has some experience doing something which contacts base reality, where outcomes are not socially determined. Business, STEM, the military etc all fall into this category. Those people who spend their careers in the purely social feedback loops of law and politics do I think make poor leaders even if they excel at the process that gets them to the leadership.

peterrhague ↗