Sir Keir Starmer, open-collared and stony-eyed, insisted he was 'not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos'. Four times he repeated this as the extent of Labour's losses became horribly clear.
Interviewer Beth Rigby from Sky News was too kind to say the country was already in chaotic decline due to Sir Keir's ineptitude. The Prime Minister, up before 9am to get his media torture out of the way early, was doing that computer-speak thing where he keeps repeating a message, no matter what the question. In addition to the 'I'm not going to walk away' line, he kept saying the results were 'tough', as if they were a slice of bad beef.
Reporter Rigby pressed quite hard on whether the PM understood how stinkingly unpopular he was. The AI-programmed premier did not recognise this scenario. 'I'm not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos,' repeated Sir Keir.
Starmer's Defensive Stance
Responding to election losses is a miserable game for any politician, even if voters enjoy these moments. They give us rare, fleeting satisfaction at the hands of the boobies who govern us. Alas, one looks to Sir Keir in vain for vulnerability or dejection. He is no more built for such things than he is for elan. He is methodical, mechanical and blurps out what he has been instructed to say by his handlers. Emotional display is simply not in the repertoire.
Rigby asked how he was feeling. That 'how' should have been an 'if'. Sir Keir disclosed nothing about his inner sentiments, if such things existed. Instead, he produced some string of sausage cliches about how he felt sorrow for the Labour candidates who had been beaten. 'It's absolutely clear,' he said. And then again: 'It's absolutely clear that the electorate is fed up with...' There was a tiny pause, and I thought he might be about to say 'with ME!' But no. It was something boring about how we were all fed up with our lives not improving fast enough.
Symbolism and Comparisons
The tieless shirt did the Prime Minister no favours. When Mary Queen of Scots stepped on to the execution scaffold, she bared her neck for the final, violent act. Consciously or not, Sir Keir's white neck brought echoes of that cold day in 1587. Hundreds of unelected Labour politicians will certainly be thinking 'let's give him the chop'.
Sir Keir was asked if it was true that Ed Miliband had asked him to set out a timetable for his departure. This elicited the one instinctive, uncontrolled response. His head flicked to one side, and he snapped that Mr Miliband had 'dealt with this and made it absolutely clear he supports me'. It was not, you will note, a denial that Ed Mil wanted him to start preparing for a handover.
Farage's Triumph
A tale of two leaders: while Sir Keir was indoors at a drab Methodist hall in Ealing, surrounded by glum faces and droopy bunting, Nigel Farage was the other side of London. He was outside in the sunshine, flanked by gurning Reformers celebrating their success. Behind them stood Havering town hall, built in 1937 in the international moderne style. It was, cried Mr Farage in his pint-of-gin voice, 'under new management!'
A suntanned and blue-suited Farage clasped the signet ring on his left hand's pinkie. There was a lot of laughter and head-wobbling as he enumerated his succulent prospects. 'The best is yet to come,' he gurgled. Should Sir Keir quit? Farage hoped most fervently not. 'He's our best asset!'
One reporter was impertinent to mention a recent rumpus about Nigel's finances. Mr Farage rode right over him. This was the day for triumph. The head wobbling helped to project an impression of inevitability, of remorseless progress. Photographers crowded around but recoiled from their viewfinders in startlement at what looked very much like a vegans-for-Palestine rainbow tie.
We will be seeing a lot of Nigel Farage in coming days. Let's just hope he changes that tie.
