Managing the News

Tricky for Starmer, how to negotiate Gaza and the Hamas attack. In the early stages, it’s not surprising that he wants to keep in step with other Western powers, not be outflanked by Sunak, retain the credit for fighting anti-Semitism. So he says it’s an outrage, and Israel must be free to respond. Even if that includes hutting off water and electricity? Yes.

That’s what happened. He had a clear chance to distinguish between rational response and a war crime, and he didn’t take it. In that interview, he basically said “Anything goes.” Since then the Mandelson-style machine has whirred into action, insisting that that wasn’t what he meant, that he’s now totally clear human rights must be defended, that he’s in favour of a pause but not a ceasefire, because that would benefit Hamas…It’s all very frantic and insistent, and it doesn’t face the truth, which was that he made a mistake. In this context, under that pressure, not amazing. But it’s so damaging that he can’t afford to admit it.

So, damage limitation. Go and talk to some Muslims, insist that he does care about the Palestinians, and then produce a statement underlining his wisdom and compassion - which infuriates the Muslims he spoke to, because it’s dishonest about the nature of the conversation that they shared. So, so short-sighted, this obsession with presenting the leader as faultless, when all that does is disillusion potential supporters who know that isn’t true.