PMQs: Studious Starmer bashed by Boris

Boris Johnson’s attacks on Sir Keir Starmer have become increasingly disciplined and forceful. In today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, the new Leader of the Opposition was branded such a flip-flopper that “he looks as if he’s got more briefs than Calvin Klein”.

The gag struck a chord with Tory backbenchers, who let out a stifled roar. It followed a cogent build-up:

“One day he says it’s safe to go back to school, the next day he’s taking the line of the unions. One day they’re supporting our economic programme, the next day they’re saying our stamp duty cut is an unacceptable bung. One day they’re saying they accept the result of the Brexit referendum, today they’re going to tell their troops to do the exact opposite. He needs to make up his mind which brief he’s going to take today.”

Until recently, Downing Street has struggled to develop a line of attack on the new Labour leader that could stick – in part because Conservatives were taken aback by “Sir Keir’s” immediate popularity.

Starmer won the Labour leadership election the day before the Prime Minister was admitted to hospital and, in the weeks that followed, his nuanced, soft-spoken tone seemed to be in tune with a general public – sympathetic to the Prime Minister’s condition, but critical of the increasingly apparent incompetence of the government’s handling of the crisis.

But as Westminster politics returns to its normal tumult, Starmer’s nuance has become something of a trap. His position of broadly supporting the government while criticising elements of its actions was intended to appeal to as broad a base as possible, but has instead lessened the force of his interventions. Previous Labour leaders might have more emotively lambasted the government’s plentiful coronavirus mistakes in today’s PMQs. Starmer instead chose to recommend the findings of an 80-page report.

The trap is exacerbated by the fact that the Conservatives have adopted a centre-left approach to spending, at least for the duration of this crisis. As I wrote last week, Labour has struggled to distinguish itself economically from the positions taken by the Chancellor. If it were to campaign for higher taxes, the party would appear too close to Corbynism for the comfort of Starmer’s team. On the other hand, it couldn’t advocate much more borrowing than is already occurring.

Voters appear to have noticed these troubles. Following an initial surge, the latest Survation poll saw a drop in Starmer’s ratings from 37% to 34% on the question of who would make the best Prime Minister. His unfavourability rating also rose by two points.

Like many nuanced writers and thinkers, Starmer may have overestimated the patience of the body politic. All too often, reasonable opposition does not earn respect but derision, with the opposition leader branded indecisive by virtue of changing his views on the basis of new evidence.

In an age of short Twitter clips and intemperate culture wars, Jeremy Corbyn’s position was both predictable and easy to argue, because it was so simple. Starmer’s approach, while arguably more respectable, appears less suited to the shorter attention spans of modern politics.