Keir Starmer is a very rum package. His body and his manner seem to belong to different organisms. His physique is martial, sturdy, invincible. The square jaw, the trunk-like neck, the unsettlingly symmetrical face, the blue but eerily lifeless eyes. But his personality has no trace of manliness at all. He seems grannyish, nervy, over-delicate, like an unobtrusive footman who finds himself lord of the manor following a paternity test.
There’s something about him that doesn’t ring true. His voice is like the creak of a door in a chapel of rest. But he’s an effective debater. He enjoys using statistics to inflict horrors on his opponent. Today, he unleashed himself against the Prime Minister. Last week, Boris had suffered a corona shambles. He needed a convincing win.
Starmer began by quoting the government’s advice on 12 March that predicted that the infection wouldn’t reach care homes.
‘No,’ said Boris, confidently, ‘it wasn’t true that the advice said that.’
Starmer seemed surprised by this direct rebuttal. He turned to a quote from a heart specialist unearthed by Labour’s squirrels from a newspaper. Starmer called it, ‘the Daily Terrorgraph’. The specialist had alleged that the virus was being spread to care homes from hospitals deliberately.
‘We actively seeded this into the very population that was most vulnerable,’ was the quote.
These debates are like a fencing match between two unicyclists on a tightrope
That carefully worded sentence, like a pair of whetted pincers, gives prominence to two deadly phrases: ‘actively seeded’ and ‘most vulnerable.’ The accusation couldn’t be clearer. Her Majesty’s Government has waged biological warfare on elderly citizens. This happens to be the segment of the electorate with whom Boris is most popular. So a supplementary charge was being made. The PM has conspired to liquidate his own voter base.
‘Was the cardiologist right?’ said Starmer, making his query short and dropping it in at the last minute.
Boris brushed this aside and said care home deaths had fallen in March and April.
Starmer didn’t challenge this. Which is significant. It counts as a hit for the PM. These debates are like a fencing match between two unicyclists on a tightrope. The rules are abstruse and there’s no one keeping score.
Starmer next delivered some statistics that revealed a rise in excess deaths.
‘That leaves ten thousand additional unexplained deaths this April.’
Boris didn’t spot the concealed falsehood. ‘Unexplained deaths,’ is a phrase from the fiction writer’s lexicon. It suggests that the fatalities were like the crimes of a Victorian serial killer or the death toll following a freak accident in the Grampians.
Boris was wrong-footed. He flannelled about the virus being ‘an appalling disease that affects some groups more than others.’
‘I’m sorry the Prime Minister doesn’t have an answer,’ replied Starmer. He had to mention that because the bout lacks a scoring mechanism. The pugilists must keep tally during play.
So far, a draw. Starmer talked about the government’s practice during the last seven weeks of comparing death tolls between Britain and other countries.
‘Yesterday it stopped publishing international comparisons. Why?’
Great technique there. The key word, ‘why’, lethally curt, and deployed as late as possible.
Boris bumbled and waffled about ‘a once-in-a-century pandemic.’ Then he accused Starmer of cheating.
‘He seeks to make comparisons which I am advised are premature.’
Open goal for Starmer.
‘These are the government’s own slides which have been used for seven weeks to reassure the public.’
A clear hit. And another a falsehood carefully concealed. ‘Reassure the public.’ The government’s aim was never to reassure anyone but to terrify everyone.
Starmer won on points. Just about. But Boris seemed very relaxed and easy. He enjoyed it. That could be bad news for Dan Dare.
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