Britain’s Official Opposition is back!

With a sigh of relief, we can say Britain’s Official Opposition is back. After 5 years of Marxist mediocrity and chaos, the arrival of Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party is hugely welcome. A grown up with the appropriate intellect is in charge.

And my, is it needed. We are mid-pandemic so an in-depth assessment of the government’s performance and lessons to be learnt is not yet appropriate, but the indicators do not look good. And Keir Starmer, whilst scrupulously polite, is starting to apply the proverbial scalpel to Johnson’s bluster.

A chaotic announcement outlining the start of the end of the lockdown made by Johnson on Sunday (Why do this in advance of a detailed parliamentary statement?) quickly unravelled. Starmer had 6 minutes in the Commons to question the Prime Minister on Monday. He skewered him. A late start to managing the pandemic based on sympathy for the concept of herd immunity and an overall laissez faire philosophy, a general lack of preparedness which encompassed a failure of testing capacity and the initial abandonment of care homes is all forming part of what may be a merciless narrative. And that is before the break in communications with the devolved governments in coordinating the coming out of lockdown.

Having watched Prime Minister’s Question Time today, Starmer was point perfect in his analysis although both leaders to be fair struck the right tone. He took apart the government’s approach to statistics, both in terms of international comparisons and in particular, how they related to care homes. Johnson won’t be able to rabble rouse himself through PMQ’s when attendance is back to normal like he did with Corbyn.

A bright note for this Government is Rishi Sunak who is impressive as Chancellor and surely a potentially worthy successor to Johnson at some point. The rest of the Cabinet is somewhat patchy, but it is perhaps difficult to make any positive impact mid-crisis. What is noticeable, however, is Labour’s improving front bench with Anneliese Dodds as Shadow Chancellor and Lia Nandy as Shadow Foreign Secretary to name but a few stepping up. People with good intellect are appearing/returning and politics will become more competitive as a consequence.

At a leadership level, comparing Johnson to Starmer certainly feels like comparing equals on intellect but perhaps not charisma. Charisma, however, has a certain shelf life and this is shortened if plagued with incompetence. Voters may want a very different style in due course…In the meantime, a stronger Official Opposition creates better government all round. With this in mind, welcome back!