Cambridge, England. Final day of the second edition of the corporate affairs executive leadership programme. The delegates from five African countries are in a celebratory mood. After a gala dinner at Jesus College they stray playfully into the college chapel and quickly form an impromptu choir with riotous abandon. A joyful moment, brought to an end abruptly by an unseen organ player who strikes up powerfully, even violently. Perhaps a message is being conveyed in a typically obscure English way: get out of my chapel! And so to a pub for the second half of England’s first World Cup game, in which they crush Croatia in an unusually free-flowing performance. There is plenty of singing. Ingerland, Ingerland, Ingerland. Important to absorb a bit of local culture, so off to The Pickerel, my favourite Cambridge pub, where the African delegates take seats at a big, shared oak table at which a middle-aged English couple are already seated. They are curious and congenial; warm and jocular conversation breaks out. Later, my counterpart in the Cambridge-Wits partnership, Prof Themba Maseko, and I turn the conversation with the English couple to politics and the Makerfield constituency by-election that is due to happen the next day — a by-election of the kind of game-changing importance that only a constituency-based electoral system can provide. If Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who has been helicoptered in, can hold the seat for Labour and defeat the right-wing populist Reform party candidate it will no doubt propel him into 10 Downing Street after the premature end to Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. Reform is led by the grifter that is Nigel Farage, who was educated at Dulwich College, a private school in South London where he was well known for his bigoted views. Fellow Business Day columnist Prof Anthony Butler was in the same year as Farage and can vouch for his character, or lack thereof. Who will win, we ask? The couple are certain: Reform. Who do you support? Reform. Did you vote for them at the last election in 2024? Yes. Why, we ask? Because Farage speaks our language, he speaks for us, they say. OK then. But what about the dodgy £5m donation he was given before the last election? “Oh, that was fine; it was before the election. He did nothing wrong,” say the couple, happily repeating Farage’s precarious case for the defence. What about Starmer? No, he talks down to us. This is the point. He talks down to us. Above all, it sums up the big problem of modern politics. A moderate, managerial leader like Starmer, with his cosmopolitan North London worldview, “speaks down” to middle England and to “ordinary people” like our newly made friends in The Pickerel. They used to vote Labour. And Starmer’s government has made a solid start to turning “broken Britain” around in a way that will improve life for them. Ironically, his resignation speech included the clearest account of the progress that has been made in his two years as prime minister. But it — he — has not “cut through”, to use the modern political term of art. This is largely about Starmer’s character and poor communication skills. And, therefore, about his inability to connect with people. There are important lessons in this sorry tale. Starmer squandered Labour’s biggest majority, rendering the political system more vulnerable to populist takeover. This is the battle of our age, between progressive, principled leaders who believe in data, science and reason and those who deny them, reducing polycentric policy debates to crude binary choices, preying on people’s fears and encouraging them to “blame the other” — usually an immigrant. South Africa faces its own version of this. The March and March protest is a potential flashpoint next week. Political leaders need to stand up to bigotry, but they will need to find a way to connect and persuade without talking down to people. • Calland is director of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s Africa Programme and a visiting associate professor at the Wits School of Governance.