If you can’t stand the heat, stay in the kitchen. Or the lounge. Or even the strangely blank back bedroom where you do the Zooms. But Keir, wherever you go: Starm at home. Protect the public, save votes. He has been isolating again. For the fifth time. And it’s the best place for him.
I crunched the numbers and every time General Disinterest has been confined to barracks, Labour has gone up in the polls. Genuinely. Less, it seems, is more. On September 9 last year, the Tories had a four-point lead, according to YouGov. On September 14 Starmer was told to isolate because one of his kids coughed. Ta-da! By September 17, Labour and the Tories were neck and neck on 40 per cent. Then Starmer emerged to address an ungrateful nation and by September 24 the Tories were three points ahead again.
Pah! A coincidence. But then after his spell of seasonal seclusion in December last year, Labour went into Christmas with a four-point lead. He got out and the Tories pulled ahead again. Third time unlucky, on January 25 the recidivist recluse was told to isolate again. Two days on, Labour went four points ahead. A week later when he was released, the Tories had a four-point lead instead. It’s all there in the data.
Next slide please. For most of the first half of 2021 the Tories were riding high on the vaccine bounce, with double-digit leads of up to 18 points. But in July Starmer got pinged again. That day, the Tory lead was down to just four points. After Starmer got out, the Tories crept ahead, eking out a seven-point lead by the end of August. Even Matt Hancock being caught with his fingers in more than the till was outweighed by the terrifying threat of Starmer embarking on a “listening tour” of Britain.
And so to his latest spell of house arrest, bingeing the Blair-Brown documentary and perfecting his anecdote about his dad having hands. When Starmer tested positive last week, the Tories were six points ahead. There followed punchy outings by Miliband, Reeves and Rayner at the dispatch box, while lonely Starmer tried to get Laura Kuenssberg to answer his Skype calls. And lo, in the latest YouGov poll, Labour are just one point behind the Tories.
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There is only one lesson to take from this. Cancel the wi-fi. Cut up his sim. Starmer must not be let out of the house.
This is cross-party advice. Most Conservatives would benefit from a spell out of sight, out of mind after the full-time food lobbyist Owen Paterson announced he will no longer be doing his bit of MP work on the side. They must
be saved from themselves, to stop them voting for things just because Boris Johnson told them to, and then being surprised that he has commitment issues.
Don’t vote to fill rivers with sewage. Don’t vote against Marcus Rashford. And definitely don’t vote to give a Get Out of Jail Free card to an unrepentant six-figure rule-breaking lobbyist just because an abandoned double mattress in an ill-fitting suit said so.
Because a prime minister who has built a brand on looking like a bloody idiot has no qualms about making you look the same. So lock them all up. And throw away the key.