The Labour Party under Starmer have taken an unusual turn - they've moved away from an international socialist alignment to having more of a focus on national identity....
This shift if hardly subtle: you can see the UK flag draped on Labour's media sets and conferences these days apparently feel like the Proms. There has also been the recent literacy initiative of VE Day-inspired plays for schools-linking education with national memory and pride symbolically.
This seems to be a shift towards populism, the problem is it doesn't seem to be working!
And the Conservatives water it down...?
in contrast to Labour and conservative party tradition, the conservatives are now toning down their nationalism. Their language now paints a gloomy picture of Britain: they tend to focus on Daily Mail problems such as grooming gangs and knife crime...
But hang on don't the working class just want a crude Patriotism...?
Like that offered by Reform, one that emphasises protecting our borders from immigrants.
There's evidence for this in recent UK local elections in which Reform UK trounced not only the Conservatives but also made serious inroads into Labour's heartlands... Labour's more symbolic Patriotic offerings don't seem to have attracted voters!
Maybe it's part of the long game....
Labour do seem to have settled on a consensus that to govern Britain, you must show that you love Britain, but the challenge he and the Labour party now face is to show what this in means in practice, beyond a little bit of flag waving!