Stop calling Keir Starmer a good man

Photo by NL Beeld/Alamy Live News Mercifully, Keir Starmer is no longer prime minister. Though my unadulterated jubilation has been moderated by the shame of Atlanta, I’m glad – glad to see the back of the man it would be harsh to describe as Labour’s worst prime minister, but can fairly be called its most pathetic. Copiously present in national life, but utterly irrelevant to our meaningful existence, like nitrogen. The ambient man. Starmer’s great skill was a lawyerly awareness of what to say and when, how to avoid verbal ensnarement and diplomatic complication, and – crucially, when it came to facing Boris Johnson – the application of those same mechanisms to his enemies while in opposition. So what intrigued me about Starmer was that, despite this clear grasp of the power of language,