Keir Starmer has got the Zzzz…Factor

Is it a fatal handicap for a politician to be dull? Since he became Labour leader two years ago, there has been a growing feeling that Sir Keir Starmer not only lacks the magical ‘X Factor’ that makes for political success, but is in proud possession of its polar opposite – what might be called the ‘Zzz.. Factor’: that he is, in a word, boring.

This week, Labour’s fears about the soporific nature of their chief finally surfaced with a report in which unnamed Shadow Cabinet members accused Starmer of ‘boring everyone to death’. Earlier, in a coded rebuke of her boss, his deputy Angela Rayner begged him to put more ‘welly’ in his political style. Finally, the pollsters J.L. Partners found that half the respondents in a survey thought Sir Keir was ‘boring, bland and dull’ – while the other half were merely indifferent to him.

Clearly nettled by the charges, an angry Starmer rounded on his critics at a shadow cabinet meeting and told them to stop briefing the media about how tedious he is. ‘What’s