‘Sir Softie.’ That’s Rishi’s new nickname for Sir Keir Starmer. ‘Sir Softie,’ he called out twice at PMQs. ‘He’s soft on crime!’ The insult works because it’s easy to remember and pleasantly alliterative. And it builds on an existing perception of Sir Keir as a criminal-hugging lawyer.
Sir Keir set out to overturn that impression by posing as the scourge of the law-breaking classes. He started with a trick question. Citing the case of a man found guilty of scalding a prison officer with boiling water, he asked if the offender deserved a jail sentence. Rishi could tell that this was a booby-trap so he answered in generalities. Sir Keir had to unpick his subterfuge. The convicted man received a suspended sentence because several years had passed between the offence and the date of the court case. Terrific. What a brilliant way to highlight the collapse of Britain’s justice system. Well it’s brilliant if you’re a legal whiz kid speaking to other legal whiz kids.
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