British media is praising Kamala Harris for following left-wing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer‘s election strategy: “exploit hostility towards your opponent, stay vague on policy, and keep saying it’s time for change.” London’s Evening Standard agrees with former President Donald J. Trump that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz were “boring” during their set-piece interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash, breaking “no new policy ground”—but argues this is a good thing.
“[B]oring is good if you are anxious not to scare away voters. That’s what Sir Keir’s Labour found in its campaign against the exhausted Conservatives when it won with an overarching message emphasizing change,” the newspaper says.
Starmer, whose party ousted the Conservatives in a July 4 snap election after 14 years in opposition, sought like Harris to portray itself as moderate, outlining few policies. Following his ascent to power, the Briton quickly implemented radical policies not in his manifesto (election platform), such as freeing thousands of prisoners early and stripping winter fuel allowances from most pensioners. He is also alluding to imminent tax rises.
Harris, similarly, offered few hints about the policies her administration would impose, downplaying past support of banning fracking, defunding the police, and decriminalizing illegal border crossings in her CNN interview.
Several sympathetic news outlets tried to spin Harris‘s bland and substance-free interview performance as a positive. For instance, the Daily Beast ran an article titled ‘It’s Actually a Good Thing That Kamala Harris’s CNN Interview Was So Dull,’ and the Guardian praised her for “turn[ing] a much-hyped first interview as nominee into a soon-to-be-forgotten pit stop along the campaign trail.”
