ON JULY 5 last year, Keir Starmer stood outside 10 Downing Street with parliamentary majority of 174. If you’d been told that within 16 months Labour would be fourth in the polls, with the Greens second to Reform, you would have given your head a shake.  

On July 24 this year, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana announced a new movement called, temporarily, Your Party. Some 800,000 people joined its email list. Excitement rose. If you’d been told that within a couple of months two of their six founding MPs would resign and there had been threats of legal action between founders, you would also have given your head a shake. Though perhaps for different reasons.  

It’s not just the left in turmoil. The Tories ditched Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss while actually serving as prime ministers. The political geniuses Keir Starmer and his consigliere Morgan McSweeney tried to dampen interest in a leadership challenge by announcing Starmer would stand in a leadership challenge.  

I don’t even know where to begin with Reform. Rupert Lowe instructing lawyers against Farage? Kent County Council expelling its own councillors? Their split to Advance UK? I did enjoy telling one Reform social media troll to get back to Russia.  

The point is that big-P politics also has small-p politics. In the midst of heated debates about wealth inequality and global security, competence and strategy get left behind.  

The left are broadly in agreement on what we want. Investment in good public services. Strong workplace rights and decent wages. A safety net that leaves no-one behind. Redistributive taxation.  Human rights. Urgent climate action. We favour diplomacy and peace over sabre-rattling and war. Basically, reversing Thatcherism.  

But too often we stop short of saying how we would make it happen. Every activist I speak to stridently wants a renewable energy system. Asked how we’d do that, their confidence trails off.  

The right are no better, by the way. Not just Kwasi Kwarteng’s self-imploding Budget. As a metro mayor I worked with many a Tory minister who had no clarity on how to deliver their objectives. Or sometimes even what their objectives were. In reality they delivered little, but outsourced both their thinking and the contracts to well-heeled private-sector organisations, whose sole loyalty was to their bank accounts.  

That’s why centrists always end up doing the same as the right, despite the hand-wringing. If you intend to use the same mechanisms to implement public policy, you’ll get the same results.  

It’s not surprising. The number of democratic socialists who’ve had state power in this country — as opposed to being backbenchers — is a tiny handful. I remember my own brutal learning curve, and I’d had decades of project management and organisational leadership experience.  

We have to guard against shoppinglistism. The erroneous belief that we hand over a list of demands to someone else who will deliver them. Even if you’ve got a plan, you’ll have to navigate the bureaucracy to implement it. While under pressure and under scrutiny.  

Last year we founded Majority, initially in north-east. We chose the name because the majority of people agree with us. Between 65 per cent and 85 per cent of Britons want public ownership, wealth taxes, and our entire core programme. Yet we never see them get delivered in what is ostensibly a democracy.  

We identified the need for leaders at every level. Yes, we need people who can serve as mayors, council leaders and government ministers. We also need people to can articulate not just the vision but also the plan for how to get there. Who can co-ordinate the support and campaigning to make it possible.

Political education within parties is difficult — it treads on the toes of party policy. Candidate training programmes inside parties veer towards being dogmatic rather than pluralist. They inculcate loyalty rather than responsibility.  

Majority is not a political party. We have members who are in the Greens, Your Party, smaller parties and Labour (and we don’t grass them up!) And loads who are not in any party. So there is nothing to stop you joining. Our culture is supportive, open and inclusive. It’s heartening every time a new member says they feel heard.

We run sessions on all aspects of public policy — its implementation, and how would we explain it to the public to build support. We have film clubs. Last month we watched This is England, and discussed afterwards the emotional appeal of fascism and how to counter it.  

We’ve run a series of candidate training programmes. Training on community wealth building is coming up.  

When it comes to elections, we promote progressive alliances.  Members get an open vote on who, if anyone, we will support. We’re organised and effective. We’ve already got people elected in council by-elections.  

We need leaders at every level who can work together, who are competent and networked, and who don’t get snagged in petty disputes. People who could run the country in the interests of the people who do the work, and run it well.  

There will continue to be scandals and panics. Poverty will remain widespread and climate action will be inadequate. Nothing will be fixed until we get a team of competent, compassionate leaders who act with integrity.  

Jamie Driscoll is the former North of Tyne mayor, and is the elected leader of Majority (MajorityUK.org).