Without a clear vision, the focus is on personality politics. Starmer is busy looking for one, but so far it’s not going well
Lord Geidt breaking up with Boris Johnson over steel tariffs feels like one of those stories about a woman breaking up with a notorious serial killer she has married behind bars. Killers serving life sentences are surprisingly popular on the marriage market – then again, Boris Johnson’s been surprisingly popular on the ethics adviser market. So maybe the steel thing is the politics version of getting your marriage to a homicidal sex offender annulled because he didn’t phone you on your birthday. Some things are just impossible to move past, you know? According to reports, Johnson is now toying with not having an ethics adviser at all. Maybe just staying ethics-adviser single, and learning to love himself again. It’s called personal growth, actually – look it up.
That said, you get the feeling the one person Johnson really couldn’t stand to lose is Keir Starmer. The Labour leader has had another lacklustre week, which feels almost impressive, given he’s up against a prime minister who recently received a fine from the police for breaking his own laws, took a massive pasting in a no-confidence vote from his own MPs, breaks international law like a wedding vow, and is the guy in charge as the UK barrels towards a recession in the middle of an utterly grim cost of living crisis. I know Labour is six points ahead, but hantavirus is probably six points ahead of Ebola.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
