It is perhaps unsurprising that Sir Keir Starmer’s admission that he may soon be our first part-time prime minister has been seized on gleefully his opponents. ‘I haven’t finished at 6 p.m. ever’, Rishi Sunak has sniped, with the Tories accusing Starmer of wanting to work a ‘four-day week’. The Labour leader told Virgin Radio that as PM he would clock off at 6 p.m. on Fridays, ‘pretty well come what may’.
Take any animating political issue and you find that Labour plans to remove it from democratic control
So close to the end of his campaign, Starmer will no doubt be ruing giving Sunak the chance to attack him over personal laziness. But this rare bit of frankness is arguably a reminder of something rather deeper about Starmer than an alleged character flaw. It shows that in his vision for the country, the prime minister, the head of the political nation, will perhaps have very little to do.
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