Determination etched on his oblong face, Sir Keir Starmer left us in no doubt as to where he stood on a vital issue.
‘I call again,’ he thundered, ‘for an immediate return of the sausages.’ The people of Middle Britain, huddled round their radiograms, will have rejoiced and cried ‘finally Labour is speaking our language!’
Sir Keir, having clearly spent too much time with that unique communicator Angela Rayner, hurriedly corrected himself.
He made clear he had meant to say ‘hostages’, as in the Middle East.
Serious though that issue is, one was grateful for the moment of accidental levity.
The goof popped Sir Keir’s preachiness.
Determination etched on his oblong face, Sir Keir Starmer left us in no doubt as to where he stood on a vital issue. ‘I call again,’ he thundered, ‘for an immediate return of the sausages’, writes Quentin Letts
One was grateful for the moment of accidental levity, as the crowd realised he meant to say ‘hostages’, as in the Middle East
Laughing at this miserable booby also helped to reduce the anger that was surging through my inner gutters from a minute earlier when he dismissed our country as a vanquished force.
‘Britain is no longer sure of itself,’ he had quacked. ‘Our story is uncertain, the hope beaten out of us.’
How bloody dare he? The Britain many of us inhabit is perfectly sure of itself and it has never stopped being so, no matter what the Black Lives Matter knee-takers claim.
Yes, some people have tried to make us hate ourselves. Who were they? Leftist Starmerites.
This was a speech riddled with self-contradictions.
There was one instant standing ovation when he attacked ‘violent, racist thugs who terrorise our communities’.
Other ovations were of the rippling variety, which is to say that they started in one section of the auditorium and then spread as delegates realised they had to take part or look disloyal.
You could see them thinking ‘crumbs, we’re up again, come on, Marjorie, we don’t want to be the only ones still sitting’.
Sir Keir had started by telling delegates ‘take pride in your victory’. After securing such a big majority, this was fair enough.
But he then subjected them to a droning misery-fest which was basically a reprise of his election stump speech.
The way you electrify an audience is to surprise them with novel phrases and jab them with bold truths. Not this constipating forcemeat, writes Letts
‘Country first, party second – that isn’t a slogan,’ whined Sir Keir. Not a slogan? Er, slogan is precisely what it is.
The same applied to much else in his speech: ‘change begins’, ‘the politics of national renewal’, a new Britain’.
If our country really is at the perilous pass he claims, the moment demands for language more inventive and urgent and inspiring than that.
Denouncing Conservative boasts, he claimed ‘people have heard it all before’. With this turgid effort, they certainly had.
He spoke with the usual low-corpuscle delivery, the familiar whispery reaching for ‘serious politics’, seen-before leaning of right elbow on lectern because some public-speaking coach said this is how to achieve intimacy with a crowd.
The way you electrify an audience is to surprise them with novel phrases and jab them with bold truths. Not this constipating forcemeat.
Having dwelt at length on our country’s defeat he then completely changed tack for the last 10 minutes.
In this much better section he told a story about surprising a couple in the Lake District – the woman did not recognise him and, on seeing bodyguards climb into his limo, said ‘someone’s nicking your car’.
This part of the speech added that the ‘cleaners, drivers, small business owners’ of Britain and their ilk are cheerful, resilient souls who haven’t got a moment for racism, hold politicians in healthy contempt and make this a great country.
Lady Starmer, a little gingerly after recent scandals, joined her husband for the closing applause
In the Lake District Sir Keir even discovered that ‘the grass was every bit as green as it was fourteen years ago’. Never!
Oh and we had just one protestor, again about Gaza. Happened just as Sir Keir said everyone had a right to self-expression. Off he was carted!
Lady Starmer, a little gingerly after recent scandals, joined her husband on stage for the closing applause.
He grabbed her, beamed, and then beggared off to the United Nations, happy to leave the soil of our slandered kingdom below the spinning wheels of his private jet.
Stay as long as you like, mate. We’ll cope somehow.