If it benefits him it doesn’t matter what it costs others?
What are the costs, and to whom are they ascribed? The Palestinians? Are you seriously suggesting that a slightly more emphatic pronouncement from the leader of an opposition party in a rapidly declining former power is going to make a difference??
To the moral fabric of the nation? Possibly, but that has to be factored against the deleterious effects of a further 5 years of Tory, or more likely a smaller than possible majority for Labour in govt.
Your two examples are of a kind of self-serving populism designed to boost support for politicians. I don’t think that’s the same thing as having a robust and principled position on genocide.
You've lost me on this. Populism is about offering fantasy answers to misdiagnosed problems. The Tories rode a wave of populism into power. Corbyn tried to, but was just too shît at it, and surfed himself down the plughole, through a cortege of Tories pointing him in its direction. He took the poor with him. Promises and lofty aims are great, but their actual nutritional content is questionable.
I think Starmer has understood what Labour has to do to get into power and to a large extent it's about not allowing a re-run of 2019 and letting the Tories hang themselves. Effective? Yes. Tasty? Not so much.
The genocide thing deserves more analysis than a glib comment. I happen to agree with you that what is happening is an attempt at a genocide (in its loosest definition). I think the Israelis are attempting to bomb the Gazans into an exodus. I think it has been apparent for a month maybe. I viewed this as a likely tactic from the start on the basis that it fits in with Likud's endgame and Nethanyahu's pronouncements in previous decades. However, viewing something as a probability isn't enough for a mainstream politician and likely world statesman to declare it as such, especially given local sensibilities around Jews and anti-semitism, nor after a massacre of 1200 civilians, the taking of 250 hostages, and images of a young woman being dragged from a jeep, her jogging bottoms sodden from blood after being gang-raped.
Personally, I think Starmer has the space now to increase his rhetoric on Gaza (because, after all, rhetoric is all it can ever amount to), but it looks as if his strategy is to focus on the domestic problems of British people and the Tory government's inaction therein, rather than the problems of foreign* people on another continent.
*yes, I used this word deliberately, and in the full knowledge that it is catnip to Adam.