What better way to declare the joys of the bank holiday well and truly over than a steely-faced lecture from a man tragically born without a sense of humour, Sir Keir Starmer. Many people are worried about the future of satire in the UK: the threat of draconian laws to make it illegal to say that Yvette Cooper looks like a character from A Bug’s Life doesn’t immediately bode well for the state of mickey-taking in the nation. I am more optimistic, for one simple reason – the new Government is an absolute boon to satirists.
True, the Tories had a pretty good go at being a running joke – though at times their humour was a little cruel. Whoever thought that it was a bright idea to thrust reality-phobe Elizabeth Truss into the global limelight ought to have a word with themselves. However, by the end, the Conservatives knew they were a joke, which made them less funny. New Labour ministers, by contrast, spend their whole time telling everyone how serious and grown-up they are – which ironically makes them the perfect target for jokes.
It’s taken them fewer than 50 days to be caught being dodgy, amid the row over Labour donor Lord Alli being given a Downing Street security pass. Rather than owning up to this, Sir Keir took the opportunity to lecture the nation on how upright and honest he and his Government are.
He was adamant that the doors of Downing Street were now open to all. Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. If you come brandishing an “open sesame” in the form of a nice big envelope of cash for the Labour Party, I suspect that the famous black door swings open a little easier than otherwise.
Even the No 10 rose garden had been co-opted by Sir Keir’s mission to de-cronify politics. “A garden that was once used for lockdown parties,” he said, gesturing at his surroundings with disgust. “Remember the pictures just over there of the wine and the food … well this garden and this building are now back in your service.”
The claim was simultaneously twee and absurd (and not just because Alli organised a garden reception in Downing Street just a few weeks earlier). What does it even mean? When Larry the Cat goes out to the hedges for his evening ablutions, is that serving us? Shall we salute him as he slinks in, post-spray?
Sir Keir’s problem is this: he’s made a big thing of being the apex of morality. Unfortunately, that’s not an image easy to maintain in the grubby reality of government. So he finds himself inevitably painted as a hypocrite. Now, add to that the fault of being unable to take any criticism and the regrettable fact that you’ve begun to believe your own bunkum, and you have an unfortunate combination.
There’s a sense they’ve been dishing it out for so long they’ve forgotten how to take it. Sir Keir looked genuinely affronted by a few critical questions from reporters. The cronyism allegations came from Tories, he snapped, so could safely be ignored. (Translation: “How dare people hold me and my government to account?”)
In an excruciating interview inflicted by Kay Burley of Sky News earlier in the morning, Labour Party chair Ellie Reeves had brushed off Alli’s No 10 pass as if it were a common occurrence for a donor without an official role to be granted one. (As it happens, donors seldom get passes for helping people wear glasses.)
Asked to elaborate on the millionaire donor’s pass, Sir Keir described Alli’s role as “transition work”, which is one way of saying “giving me money to buy glasses”. Starmer has more than an element of Malvolio about him: saying transparently ludicrous things while not grasping his essential absurdity.
Everything was someone else’s fault. Ministers didn’t want to raise taxes in the autumn, oh no, but their hands were tied. Everything had been going swimmingly until they found that Tory black hole in the finances. Which adds another character trait the British hate – self-pity.
And then there’s the PM’s fatal flaw – his sense-of-humour bypass. This became all too apparent during the election campaign, when Sir Keir expressed outrage at studio audiences laughing at his nth rendition of “my father was a toolmaker” during the TV debates. “My father would have turned in his grave,” he huffed to GB News, attributing the giggles to snobbery rather than just, you know, him saying the same thing over and over again, which became a running joke.
Clearly, people weren’t laughing at his father, but at him. But that’s the trouble when your only mode is self-righteousness – you have no clue when people are poking fun at you.
The British public is still getting used to Sir Keir and his new Cabinet. Inevitably, we are learning more about what makes him tick each day. Such things matter because, as he is so keen to remind us, character is important. Today’s speech was proof that the pompous and prissy personal qualities that he showed on the campaign trail have followed our new Prime Minister into government. They are traits of which I suspect the British public will quickly tire.
Source Agencies
