The Age of Gloom has begun. Anyone suspected of levity will be taken outside and shown, or if necessary thrown into, the £22 billion black hole. The tone will be set, and set again for anyone who has not got the point, and set yet again because one cannot reiterate too frequently the dreadfulness of our predicament, by Sir Keir Starmer, a Prime Minister who behaves like a humanist celebrant who has not quite got the hang of how to conduct a funeral, and ought never to be entrusted with a wedding.
How glum the Labour benches were. They were wearing red but their thoughts were blue. For half an hour, Starmer gave them nothing to cheer. One would not guess they had just won a great election victory. Their leader offered them a string of sombre platitudes, banal, trite, insipid, stale and depressing.
They have been elected to clear up the mess, the NHS isn’t working, they inherited absolute chaos, it’s all the horrid Tories’ fault.
Rishi Sunak did well as Leader of the Opposition. He asked why Starmer has chosen to favour train drivers on £65,000 a year over pensioners on £10,000 a year.
Starmer floundered. He could not explain why ASLEF has received gentler treatment than the oldies. “We have to take the tough decisions,” he reminded us.
Sunak asked how the decision to impose a partial weapons embargo on Israel will help get the 101 remaining hostages freed.
Starmer went into canting lawyer mode, asserting that “it’s a legal decision, not a policy decision”.
Sunak reminded him that it is also a geopolitical decision – what engagement had there been with the United States? – and an emotional decision.
Starmer grew flustered, and called Sunak “the Prime Minister”, for Sunak sounded more prime ministerial than he did. One could not help wondering whether it is too late to cancel the Conservative leadership contest.
Sir Ed Davey brought up a heart-rending case of a pensioner who will lose from the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment.
“I’m not pretending it’s not a difficult decision,” Starmer replied, the double negative an indication that he has not yet solved the difficulty of how to defend it.
Pete Wishart, for the SNP, took a swipe at Starmer, who responded well by pointing at the benches now occupied by the Lib Dems and saying, “I remember when they were sitting here.”
The Labour benches burst out laughing. After 30 minutes of platitudes they had something to celebrate: their victory over the SNP.
Tony Blair, who has reinvented himself as Polonius, was this morning heard on the airwaves offering sombre tips on leadership to his successor.
His advice is superfluous. Starmer already knows how to do serious. What he has not yet learned is the art of the witty, rueful aside, with which in the 1990s the young Blair used so often to wriggle out of trouble.