DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Will Sir Keir the chameleon ever show his true colours?
Quite where Sir Keir Starmer sits in the political spectrum remains a troubling conundrum. He has spent the past four years apparently renouncing Corbynism and trying to drag his party back to the centre ground of British politics.
Drawing heavily on the New Labour playbook, he adopted Tony Blair's 'regular guy' approach and has been careful to do nothing which would frighten the horses in Middle England.
All along, his watchword has been moderation – until now. Following a highly personal pitch to the voters on Monday, he declared himself to be a socialist after all.
So, has he laid to rest the ghost of Jeremy Corbyn or not? Labour's hard-Left have been quiet as the party's poll lead has grown. But they are still there in numbers and biding their time.
British opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer gives a keynote speech during a Labour party general election campaign event in Lancing
Britain's Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and Labour MP Rachel Reeves speaks during a Labour general election campaign event at Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, in Derby
Sir Keir's embrace of the S-word will have given them hope. Let's not forget, the Labour leader was one of Mr Corbyn's principal lieutenants and backed him to the hilt in his bid for Downing Street.
What's in a label, one might say, and it's true that socialism can be defined in many ways. But at its heart is the belief that the state should control the means of production – in other words major industries should be nationalised.
It is also a system which specifically champions the worker against the bosses. Quite how that squares with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves's claim yesterday that Labour is the party of business is yet to be explained. As is so much else about her economic policy.
If industry leaders were hoping to be enlightened by her 'showcase' speech at the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby, they were to be sorely disappointed.
Delivered in the flat, robotic tones of an I-Speak-Your-Weight machine, it was little more than a stream of irritating mantras ('Tory chaos' six times, 'changed Labour' five times etc) with no detail about what she would actually do if elected.
Drawing heavily on the New Labour playbook, Starmer adopted Tony Blair 's 'regular guy' approach (above in 1997) and has been careful to do nothing which would frighten the horses in Middle England
She bragged of a letter (clearly choreographed) from 120 'business leaders' in support of Labour's economic policies, but on closer examination the signatories were either obscure, retired or known party sympathisers. Not a single chief executive of a FTSE100 company was represented.
When asked whether she, too, was a socialist Ms Reeves demurred, preferring to describe herself as a social democrat. Does that mean she is on the same hymn sheet as her leader? Who knows?
Labour's strategy in this election is clearly to keep parroting anti-Tory slogans and say nothing which could rock their own boat.
However, there are deeply worrying elements of class war socialism in the limited policies they have unveiled so far.
Tax raids on independent schools and non-doms, both of which could end up costing the country money as tens of thousands of private pupils are pushed into the state system and high net worth foreigners take their money and their businesses elsewhere.
Also, Ms Reeves's smokescreen pledge not to increase income tax or National Insurance still leaves her plenty of scope to increase taxes in other ways including plundering private pensions and hiking capital gains and inheritance tax.
The truth is Sir Keir is so far ahead in the polls he doesn't feel the need to show his full hand. But don't the public have a right to know who and what they are voting for? It's surely time for this political chameleon to show his true colours.