Starmer says the EU anthem best sums up Labour

Join die Labour jubilation! Keir Starmer, the man who is very likely to be our next prime minister, has just been asked on Classic FM to choose a piece of music that sums up Labour and picked ‘Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the choral Ode to Joy’. Which just happens to be the European Union’s anthem.

‘It has got a sense of destiny and is hugely optimistic,’ Starmer told his radio audience. ‘It’s that sense of moving forward to a better place, [which] is incredibly powerful.’

So a sort of high-brow version of the Blairite D:Ream belter: Things can only get better. Or perhaps a not-so-subtle nod to those Starmer-supporting Remainers who hope that, with him in No. 10, Britain might somehow find its way back to its joyful membership of the EU.  

Or Maybe Starmer just really likes Beethoven. In his Desert Island Discs appearance on Radio 4 in 2020, he chose Ludwig’s Pastoral Symphony and his Piano Concerto No.