Starmer’s long game: party repair comes before opposition politics

What is Keir Starmer thinking? His approach might baffle Tory MPs, who wonder if he will ever spring to life. The answer, though, is that he’s playing a long game. He hopes he will be a strong opposition leader when the time is right.

For now, it is time to offer support to Boris Johnson’s government. The pandemic has created tricky terrain for the shadow cabinet. Much like in wartime, normal political rules don’t apply, because ‘people want the government to succeed’. Starmer’s supporters say coronavirus means the Labour party has been squeezed out of the conversation.

It’s not as simple as Starmer not knowing what he wants, even if some Labour MPs see this as the main problem. He initially planned his interventions as ‘constructive opposition’ in a time of national crisis, but this approach has started to wear thin. Tory MPs have taken to referring to him as ‘Captain Hindsight’, because of his habit of calling for measures that were clearly imminent.