The Commons has already moved on from Sir Keir Starmer. The man himself still comes to the chamber, most recently for Prime Minister’s Questions, but he did so as a corpse is present at its wake.
MPs gawp at him more in interest than concern. They talk over his open coffin. He was lucky no one stepped forward to place an obol under his tongue or to plant a kiss on his cold forehead. Not that there was any chance of Lucy Powell doing that.
Ms Powell (Lab, Manchester C), sacked from the Cabinet last autumn, was sitting just behind Sir Keir. She is a supporter of Andy Burnham. One could discern no pity in her eyes as she watched the nasal knight croak through his lines. Just boredom. She was practically drumming her fingernails.
Wes Streeting watched from the far end of the House. Wes is looking more chiselled than of old. Maybe our colleagues on Femail should do a piece on the leadership diet. Kemi Badenoch talked of these being sunset days for Sir Keir’s premiership. He heard her and did not react. There was no flick of the head in annoyance or amusement. If he were really intending to contest Mr Burnham’s likely challenge, would he not have scoffed at Kemi’s phrase?
Mrs Badenoch went through the motions. You could say she sounded leaderly – recent events have lent her a sheen – but there was no jeopardy in the exchanges. She and Sir Keir just tapped the ball over the net to one another. She is no longer his main threat. He even sounds quite admiring of her.
MPs gawp at Sir Keir more in interest than concern, writes Quentin Letts. They talk over his open coffin
Kemi Badenoch talked of these being sunset days for Sir Keir’s premiership
As Sir Keir burbled away, reciting familiar lines about how the Conservatives were ‘sent packing’ by the electorate, the House chattered. Some MPs, not least the Trade Secretary Peter Kyle, fiddled with their mobile telephones. Mr Kyle’s ministerial career may be lucky to survive the end of the Starmer era. Others gossiped to their neighbours.
A Conservative humorist interrupted Sir Keir’s monologue with a shout of ‘taxi!’ while others said ‘good-bye’. On burbled Sir Keir, to no avail. It reminded me of a chap I worked beside in my days as a City reporter. One day, to nobody’s great surprise, he was sacked. We presumed that would be the last we’d see of him but he turned up the next day, and the day after that. Eventually the City editor had to advise him, gently, that he was definitely no longer required. The message, when finally comprehended, hit him hard.
Mr Kyle left well before the end. So did the Chief Whip, Jonathan Reynolds. In any Burnham government perhaps Reynolds will return to Trade. Science Secretary Liz Kendall huddled between the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and the Housing Secretary Steve Reed. Shabana? Surely safe. Liz? Expendable. Mr Reed is a Starmer ultra but he may be hard to dismiss. He might cause trouble.
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Further along the Government frontbench sat Nick Thomas-Symonds, Paymaster General and a lawyer friend of Sir Keir. Clever, less incompetent than many of them, but he lacks much political personality.
A new prime minister will need to make space for his own chums. And what will happen to the new Health Secretary James Murray? He’s that little, dark-haired one who looks like a mortuary assistant and can never give a straight answer to a question. Ms Powell might dislodge him.
At the other end of the bench sat the Leader of the Commons, Sir Alan Campbell. Zero public recognition but a solid operator. Mr Burnham would be foolish to dispense with him but Sir Alan is 68, and resolutely untrendy.
The ‘Vote Andy For Us’ brigade might not understand that. Choices, considerations, prospects, who’s in and who’s out: these are the only things happening at Westminster. The rest of the time the salt water laps listlessly at the Government’s whitening hull while a full sun burns down and the dead albatross of Lord Mandelson swings from the mainmast.
