A spectre is haunting Keir Starmer – the spectre of François Hollande. In literal terms, the former president of France still lingers on this earthly plain; politically, however, he might as well have passed on. His ill-fated 2012-2017 presidency offers a bleak warning for the Labour Party leader as he looks ahead to governing after the next general election.
Much as Labour members might wish to avoid the comparison, Hollande is a politician to whom Starmer bears more than a passing resemblance. A middle-aged Socialist Party bureaucrat, Hollande was a bland personality from the centre of his party, lacking both a clear ideological profile and experience of ministerial office. Although he stood on a platform that, like Starmer’s today, included bold economic reforms and plans for active industrial policy, he campaigned primarily as an unthreatening, consensual moderate – a reassuringly boring safe pair of hands. In contrast to Nicolas Sarkozy, the hyperactive and scandal-ridden right-wing incumbent, Hollande promised to govern as a “normal” president. (Starmer has played up a similar contrast with Boris Johnson.) Amid the eurozone crisis and pressure on the cost of living, Hollande succeeded in accomplishing what Starmer hopes to achieve at the next election – taking advantage of the incumbent’s unpopularity to end a long period of conservative rule.
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