Our technocrat PM seems to think he is above politics

Keir Starmer didn’t answer Rishi Sunak’s first question any of the three times he asked it.

- JOHN RENTOUL

Will he publish the assessment that must have been carried out by civil servants of the impact of cutting the pensioners’ winter fuel payment? The prime minister said “the fact of the matter is” that the Conservatives left a £22bn black hole, and that Sunak ought to apologise before “he complains about us clearing up his mess”.

The second time, Starmer said: “I remember the days when the Conservative Party was concerned about balancing the books.” The third time, he accused Sunak of pretending that everything is fine, which was why his party was now sitting on the opposition side of the Commons.

This week’s Prime Minister’s Questions was not a comfortable experience for Labour MPs, still smarting from the painful experience of having to vote the day before to take money away from some pensioners who could ill afford it.

But it was revealing of Starmer’s impatience with the theatre of politics. He seems to think that, because he came late to politics, he is better than people who have done nothing but politics all their lives. He genuinely seems to believe that, while he is serious about dealing with the country’s problems, his opponents are using those problems as an excuse for playing politics.