The key difference between Johnson and Starmer

Here is the symbolic difference between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer. Johnson at the CBI rocked up with a bunch of notes and mid-way through lost track of what he was saying, whereas Starmer turned up three hours early and rehearsed his speech in full twice. There were other important differences. You’d think, given the damage that Brexit did to Labour in the 2019 general election, Starmer wouldn’t touch leaving the EU with a barge pole.

But to a business audience that is deeply anxious about the rising cost of trading with the EU, Starmer listed how he would endeavour to negotiate better access to the EU’s market for the City, for farmers, for professional services. By contrast, the Prime Minister who gave us Brexit didn’t nod to the concerns of those many business leaders who think the terms of leaving the EU could and should be sweetened.

There was not even a mention of the fraught talks between his minister Lord Frost and the European Commission’s Maros Sefcovic on the dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol that could yet spark a fully-fledged and destructive trade war with the EU.