As Prime Minister, you don’t choose the crises that hit Britain and your Government.
Some are domestic, some foreign affairs and others both, for example the financial crash some 15 or so years ago.
None are easy to deal with, otherwise they would not be crises.
But some are easier to deal with than others.
And here Sir Keir Starmer may have found himself dealing with a crisis for which he is better equipped than many would be.
As a former Director of Public Prosecutions, the new Prime Minister fully understands the criminal justice system, the mindset of criminals including far-right thugs and is used to working closely with police chiefs.
He was also in this post when riots erupted in London in 2011.
So, it’s his second major riots and it looks like he may emerge with credit in the way he has handled them.
By ramping up the notoriously slow criminal justice system, to get far-right thugs arrested, into court and jailed, the Government appears to have put a lid on the riots which were threatening to escalate on Wednesday evening with nearly 40 reported planned protests by extremists to target immigration centres.
Tens of thousands of anti-racism demonstrators taking to the streets, including in Walthamstow, east London, no doubt also played a significant part in countering the threatened disturbances.
Outbreaks of violence may still happen, but certainly for the time being they seemed to have been quelled.
Contrast the riots with the Covid pandemic, which struck just months into Boris Johnson’s premiership, and the crises are on a totally different scale.
The idea of virtually shutting down the nation with a series of lockdowns was pretty much unimaginable, even if it is not now.
Similarly, restricting people to only being able to go out in pairs in public, outside of households, travel restrictions, banning visitors from care homes, closing schools, ramping up a testing system for an unknown virus, and rushing through a vaccine at extraordinary speed seem like something for the movies.
Mr Johnson’s government was clearly unprepared for the pandemic, as were previous administrations, and it also made a series of failures which will be laid out in full when the Covid Inquiry reports.
The then Prime Minister may also not have had the best skills set to deal with the pandemic but, stating the obvious, it was a challenge far beyond the action needed to stop the riots.
Tony Blair also had a disease crisis, but in no way so major as the pandemic, to respond to in 2001 with foot-and-mouth, cattle not humans.
It led to the general election being delayed as the Government initially struggled to respond as the disease swept through farms, before it was crushed with the slaughter of more than six million cattle, sheep and pigs, and grisly sights of huge pyres to burn the carcasses.
As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown held a meeting of world leaders at the ExCeL centre in London in April 2009 which, together with earlier action, is credited with helping to shore up the world’s financial system.
As a former Chancellor, a financial crisis far more suited him than other difficulties that rocked his Government, including the MPs’ expenses scandal.
Mr Brown did not survive much longer in No10, losing the May 2010 election.
For Sir Keir, if he emerges successful in dealing with the riots, he will have boosted his authority as PM very early on during his premiership.
He may even weaken the Tory attack line of him being a Lefty Lawyer.
