Oh the sombreness of the faces surrounding Sir Keir Starmer (see picture above)! He addressed the Commons in the manner of a stern new headmaster who believes that only by raising the moral tone of this failing school can he transform its performance.
The institution he has taken over is, he reported, in a dreadful state, and “the rot of 14 years will take time to repair”, for decline is “deep in the marrow”.
We had earlier heard the King’s Speech, and this was the start of the debate on it. Labour is now in charge, having won a famous victory, and the benches on the Government side were crammed with eager new MPs, many of them wearing red.
Their leader informed them that life is real and life is earnest. He was heard in friendly silence until Sarah Owen (Lab, Luton North) told him 45 per cent of the children in her constituency “are growing up in relative poverty” and asked what the Government is going to do about it.
The Prime Minister assured her there will be “a task force that will lead our strategy”. At such moments he sounds like a management consultant.
Stephen Flynn, Westminster Leader of the much reduced band of Scots Nats, wondered how many children will be left in poverty, and suggested the answer is to scrap the two-child child benefit cap.
Starmer referred again to “strategy”. He spoke also of “mission”, “service” and “promises that have lingered in the lobby of good intentions for far too long”.
Now at last we have a Prime Minister with the moral seriousness to get things done: “no more wedge issues, no more gimmicks”.
The time has come, he announced, to “turn the page on an era of politics as noisy performance”. This was evidently a dig at Boris Johnson, but across the Despatch Box he faced the altogether calmer, quieter Rishi Sunak, who had just made what Starmer himself admitted was a generous speech.
“Before you know it you have a bright future behind you,” Sunak remarked in a rueful tone, “and you are left wondering whether you can be an elder statesman at the age of 44.”
After speaking well of Starmer he reminded him that, as Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has attested, “the books are wide open”, so “trying to pretend that things are worse than expected really won’t wash”.
Can Starmer do it? No one knows. He should perhaps be praised for avoiding triumphalism, and for giving his MPs no excuse for triumphalism.
But after an era of politics as noisy performance, he intends to lead us into an era of politics as pious performance.
