Following Labour’s disappointing defeat to Reform in the Runcorn by-election, Paddy Power Games caught up with renowned body language expert Judi James to decode the body language of Sir Kier Starmer’s post-election interview.
James said, “Given that this election rout had been forecast for a while, it was amazing that Starmer should look so weak, wrong-footed, and unprepared here.
“Most politicians craft two body language and verbal responses to any election – one for winning and one for losing.
“The loser speech has been around since before Gordon Brown’s airing of the cliché fallback ‘I hear you’, but Starmer’s use of verbal fillers with his ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ suggested he was lost for words, which in turn could actually suggest he had no idea whatsoever that his party were about to take a spanking.
“In terms of the visual signals, Starmer looked crushed. His face was pink and shiny, and his eyes even looked a little watery. He showed no sign of authentic stoicism or bravado, and the commonly used default of spinning a loss as a victory was clearly not on his menu.
“His stuttering ‘I reflect, of course, on the results’ remark saw him back in robotic mode, speaking in an unnaturally formal way to avoid any suggestion of emotion. But his ‘I get it’ sounded like a clutch at the Gordon Brown–style soundbite straw, as he looked defensive, shaking his head as he said ‘I never pretended I had some budget wand.’
“To finish a painfully awkward interview, he took the Andrea Jenkyns route – only without the sequins. Something seemed to have clicked in his brain to trigger the PR spin words that some team of bright young things might have designed in a bid to get him off the hook.
“His ‘Go further, go faster and deliver’ came with no sense of conviction, but he clamped his lips together as though thinking this would be enough and turned on his heel to just walk away, only remembering a cursory backward nod to the journalist and a curt ‘thank you’ to make this look anything other than a flounce to escape.”
