One of the most ridiculous non-stories of the UK General Election campaign so far has been the attempt to focus on individual politicians’ (specifically Keir Starmer) physical stamina. The Tories have been trying to argue that the Labour Leader isn’t up to the hard slog of a six week campaign because of his age. Some were running with the insult “Sleepy Starmer”. They certainly aren’t cutting it in the originality stakes given that one was nicked from Trump’s attacks on Biden as “Sleepy Joe” in 2020 (and that turned out well). On the first weekend of the campaign, the attack line was that Starmer wasn’t out and about campaigning early on Sunday morning.
The Labour response was to insist that Starmer was up for the fight and was in fact out and about enduring a gruelling timetable. I wish they hadn’t responded like that. I wish that instead they had pointed out that there were 6 weeks to go, that this was a marathon, not a sprint and that yes, their leader did need to sleep for 7-8 hours at night and that he’d be taking at least one day a week off to refresh and spend time with his family.
You see, it seems that our politicians seem to think they know better than their creator. God made us to enjoy work and rest. Right from the point of creation he set the pattern in place of night and day, six days work and one day rest. That pattern extends to seasons and even, I believe to cyclical patterns of seven years and fifty years in economic terms. Of course politicians seem to think they can break those patters whether it’s Gordon Brown ending boom and bust, David Cameron’s macho posturing by campaigning for 24 hours solid at the end of the 2015 election or Margaret Thatcher setting the precedent of getting by on 5 hours sleep a night. Alongside this we have the need for prime ministers to get straight back from holiday to make statements whenever a crisis hits. Usually they had no ability whatsoever to stop the crisis and would have served everyone better by staying away on holiday.
I think that one of the reasons is that we are confused. We at one and the same time want our leaders to be ordinary, to be like us, down to earth, seeming to share our interests. We want them to be matey. However, we also want them to be superhuman. The whole point of the stamina attacks is to show that the opponents cannot be trusted/relied upon.
Well, of course, I would not entrust my life into the hands of our politicians but there again I don’t expect to. I want to know that they will do their best. I suspect that a well-rested leader with a settled home life is better equipped to do that. But they are not our saviours and never can be. I don’t want them to be superhuman. I want them to admit that they are human.
Faithroots 