Due diligence
An embattled Keir Starmer falls back on process
It may or may not be the case that all happy political parties are alike, but on Wednesday we saw that each unhappy party is definitely unhappy in its own way. The faces on the Labour benches weren’t identical to the ones we saw among the Tories in the final days of Theresa May and Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak (have I missed anyone?), but the condition was recognisable: a party that knows things have gone badly wrong.
The Labour mood was perhaps most of all disappointment. Whatever reservations MPs might have had about Keir Starmer, they hadn’t thought the crisis of his premiership would centre on an American paedophile millionaire. Indeed, one of the mysteries of all this is that the world leader in most imminent danger of losing his job over Jeffrey Epstein isn’t the one who was his close friend for years, but one who never even met him.
Tomorrow’s episode of War Movie Theatre is on Nuremberg, a film that is, well, pretty awful. But it’s a lot of fun to discuss. Listen at warmovietheatre.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Imagine getting yourself into a situation where Badenuff can legitimately accuse you of a terrible error of judgement and all the irony meters in the country don't go off at once...