Starmer channels Blair on Israel

The gears were grinding hard at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer shifted his party decisively away from its Corbynista past and pledged full support for Israel after the recent atrocities. He said he was ‘still mourning the terrorist attacks’. And having met relatives of British hostages held by Hamas, he was unequivocal. ‘Release them immediately.’

It’s a shame that his rhetoric felt so polished and poetic. Almost like song lyrics. ‘Too much blood, too much darkness,’ he crooned. ‘The lights are going out and innocent citizens are terrified they will die in the darkness, out of sight.’ And he indulged in a lot of glib verbal counterpoint. ‘Hamas are not the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are not Hamas.’ His aim was to pose as a visionary peacenik who still believed in ‘a two-state solution’ at some unnamed future date. ‘When hope is at its thinnest, we must work hardest.’