Sir Keir Starmer’s split personality at PMQs

It’s official. The Labour party now has two leaders. Both are knights. But it’s hard to say which is the real Sir Keir Starmer. Not even Sir Keir Starmer seems to know. Good Sir Keir is the kindly, decent comrade who wants to aid his fellow man at a time of crisis. Wicked Sir Keir is the dastardly villain who plots to unhorse his foe with a poisoned lance or a hidden dagger.

At PMQs he began as Good Sir Keir. He thanked Boris for extending the furlough and for voicing his opposition to racial prejudice.

Then he got all dastardly. He read out a fistful of statistics proving that Britain has suffered the world’s worst corona-shambles. Our excess death toll, at 63,000, is shockingly high. Then this:

‘Last week he said he was proud of his record. There’s no pride in these figures, is there?’

This was nifty footwork. The trick is in the positioning of the phrases.