Keir Starmer’s unseemly performance at PMQs

It was a day of awful numbers. And even more gruesome cliches. The Labour leader started it. ‘Yesterday we passed the tragic milestone of 100,000 deaths,’ said Sir Keir Starmer. Then he informed us that, ‘this is not just a statistic.’ He explained that each dead person has connections to other individuals who remain alive. He gave three examples. ‘A mum, a dad, a sister.’ Then he gave four more. ‘A brother, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour.’

Next he premiered a well-crafted denunciation of government failings that relied on the repetition of ‘slow’ at the start of each phrase. ‘Slow, slow, slow’, he boomed, like the tolling of a death-knell o’er a frosty graveyard.

‘Slow into the first lockdown. Slow in getting protective equipment to the front-line. Slow on a test and trace system. Slow to change the Christmas mixing rules.’

Slow to get to the point. Then he consulted his social diary and told us that this afternoon he’s on a dash to see mourning families.