In May 2025, when Keir Starmer was still prime minister, Labour politicians, campaigners and journalists gathered at the Ministry of Sound(伦敦著名夜店，也是音乐品牌) in London to watch a series of panel talks and presentations illuminated by the lucid(清澈的，明晰的) glow of club lights. The day-long event was organised by a campaign group called Compass(英国左翼竞选团体), and the subjects included child poverty, the Murdoch-owned media(默多克旗下媒体) and the rise of the radical right(激进右翼的崛起).
2025年5月，基尔·斯塔默仍在担任首相时，工党政客、活动人士和记者齐聚伦敦的Ministry of Sound夜店，在俱乐部灯光清澈的光晕下观看了一系列小组讨论和演讲。这场持续一整天的活动由名为“指南针”（Compass）的竞选团体组织，议题包括儿童贫困、默多克旗下的媒体以及激进右翼的崛起。
“We felt as though the Labour government was failing, and needed to be pulled into the 21st century,” Neal Lawson, the founder of Compass, told me. The Starmer government’s support for the Conservatives’ two-child benefit cap(两孩福利上限政策), its equivocating(模棱两可的) stance on Gaza and its emulation(模仿，效仿) of far-right rhetoric – crystallised in a speech on immigration, during which the prime minister suggested Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers(“陌生人的岛屿”言论)” – were causing Labour supporters to rapidly desert their party. “The Starmer project was so obviously intellectually bankrupt(思想破产的). He was personally so disinterested in ideas and big thinking that I thought, this is never going to fly(行不通),” Lawson said.
“我们觉得工党政府正在失败，需要被拉入21世纪，”指南针的创始人尼尔·劳森告诉我。斯塔默政府对保守党“两孩福利上限”的支持、在加沙问题上的模棱两可，以及对极右翼言论的模仿——集中体现在一次关于移民的演讲中，首相暗示英国有可能变成一个“陌生人的岛屿”——正导致工党支持者迅速抛弃该党。“斯塔默的计划显然在思想上已经破产。他个人对思想和宏大思考如此不感兴趣，以至于我想，这绝对行不通，”劳森说。
At 4pm, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, got up on stage to deliver the closing address. “It’s the latest any Labour people have been in the Ministry of Sound on a Saturday,” he joked, cheerfully sweating under the lights. He spoke for 15 minutes, speeding up with excitement. Unlike Starmer, Burnham seemed to have a clear theory about the “dark and divided times(黑暗而分裂的时代)” the country found itself in, identifying the long-term cause of Britain’s “modern malaise(弊病，不适)” as the privatisation of essential services, such as water and electricity, under Margaret Thatcher(英国前首相，私有化推手). Rather than mimicking the rhetoric of the right(模仿右翼言论), he suggested that Labour should take concrete steps to improve voters’ lives, “things that matter to people every single day”.
下午4点，大曼彻斯特市长安迪·伯纳姆上台发表闭幕演讲。“这是工党人士周六在Ministry of Sound待得最晚的一次，”他开玩笑说，在灯光下愉快地流着汗。他讲了15分钟，越讲越兴奋。与斯塔默不同，伯纳姆似乎对这个国家所处的“黑暗而分裂的时代”有清晰的理论，他将英国“现代弊病”的长期原因归结为玛格丽特·撒切尔时期基本服务（如水和电）的私有化。他没有模仿右翼的言论，而是建议工党采取具体措施改善选民生活，“那些对人们每一天都重要的事情”。
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