Máiría Cahill: ‘I crumpled and cried. Keir Starmer put his arms around me and told me he was sorry I had been treated as I had’

Keir Starmer became British prime minister on Friday. Photo: PA

Máiría Cahill

The political satire show Spitting Image famously portrayed former British prime minister John Major’s pea-eating puppet as grey and dull. So far, its Keir Starmer character is scrupulously polite.

Once, it dressed his puppet in a fox outfit, telling a street burglar that he was there to find a “pragmatic shared solution” to the pressing and dangerous issue in front of him. It was a hilarious side swipe, a satirising criticism that he’s not the most passionate man in politics.