When he does go, what will the political death certificate give as the true cause of Keir Starmer’s demise? It won’t be the Peter Mandelson scandal, the policy U-turns or the bleak nights at provincial counting centres. All these are symptoms, not the disease. No, what is turning the guy elected just 19 months ago into an ex-prime minister is the slow realisation among ministers, colleagues and voters of one essential truth about the man: there is less to him than meets the eye.
His promises get shrunk in the wash. A green new deal is jettisoned, an Employment Rights Act has a large watering can poured over it, a bold manifesto pledge to end Britain’s feudal leasehold laws suddenly grows caveats.
