A tale of two speeches

After the carnival of strange that was the second coming of Donald Trump, which included a promise to both end all wars and recapture the Panama Canal, we woke and turned our minds back to home, and the grim aftermath of the conviction of the Southport killer. Keir Starmer had summoned journalists to Downing Street to explain how the government was going to respond.

The fabulously expensive Allegra Stratton Memorial Briefing Suite, which in an unfortunate slip was decorated by the last government in Tory colours, has been remodelled with sober wood panelling. Given the disasters associated with pretty much every event that took place there, we can presume it has also undergone a months-long process of exorcism to appease whichever spirit was angered by its construction, though it seems unlikely Starmer had priests on the premises. Perhaps he called in a crack team of ordained humanists to read out Polly Toynbee columns and scatter tofu about the place. 

His statement was a sombre one, revealing of the prime minister’s character, and in sharp contrast to the president’s inaugural address a few hours earlier. Neither was great oratory, but both told us about the men who made them.

Trump’s long whine of complaints and boasts offered a preview of the coming four years with the world’s most powerful man-child. There will be ridiculous claims, allies abandoned and enemies, largely domestic, identified and denounced. If his mix of self-aggrandisement and self-pity seems unappealing to many of us, we should remember that some of our fellow citizens find it inspiring. Boris Johnson, present in the rotunda, loved it, of course. He too feels that a conspiracy of weaklings and liberals denied him his manifest destiny.

Those who find Trump appalling should note his success in making tech billionaires crawl to him

Nigel Farage was not, sadly, present. It would have taken a heart of stone not to laugh as the man who has spent months briefing everyone who’ll listen about his closeness to the Donald complained to his media arm, GB News, that Johnson was merely an “occasional friend” of Trump’s, who only “supports Donald Trump when he’s going up.”

Starmer’s oratorical style, it is becoming clear, is “comprehensive school headmaster”. He’s not afraid to have a laugh with the sixth form once or twice a term, but fundamentally he’s a serious man in a serious job. He’s also someone who takes his time reaching decisions. Where a thought has no sooner flitted into the president’s mind than he’s uttered it, the prime minister often has the air of someone responding to something you asked them a week ago.

Although the proximate cause of the prime minister’s statement on Tuesday was the conclusion of the Southport case on Monday, he was also responding to the rumbling row about grooming gangs. Not even fans of the government suggest its response there has been sure-footed, going from rejecting calls for a national inquiry to announcing a national review a week later. When Starmer described a government system “that is far too often driven by circling the institutional wagons” the thought immediately occurred that this was quite a good way of describing his own approach.

It couldn’t be acceptable, Starmer went on, “that with just a few clicks, people can watch video after horrific video. Videos that in some cases are never taken down.” Those who find Trump appalling should note that he has had significant success in making tech billionaires crawl to him, culminating by displaying them at his inauguration like distant rulers brought back to Rome as slaves after a conquest. If they can bend the knee in Washington, perhaps they can be made to take responsibility for their companies in Britain, too.

The most important aspect of the inquiry into Southport that the prime minister announced is on the question of why a killer who had been repeatedly flagged as a threat was ignored by the programmes that were supposed to stop him. The part in which the journalists present were most interested was why it had taken so long to publicly acknowledge that the killer was a terrorist and had been known to authorities. 

Starmer’s answer was typically careful: the self-radicalised individual without ties to any group isn’t what has previously been meant by “terrorist”, and the definition may need to be widened. More than that, he said, any discussion of the man’s background or evidence against him had to be held back, or else risk his trial collapsing. That too was typical, the response of a former prosecutor who sees no public benefit in revealing anything he doesn’t need to. He stuck doggedly to this line: journalists would have blamed him if a trial had collapsed. Trump, a former property developer, approaches everything as a negotiation. Are we learning that Starmer sees the world as a series of court cases?

When Yvette Cooper addressed the Commons later, she was challenged several times by Conservative MPs on the same point, as they implied that the riots which followed the killings were the fault of the government for failing to reveal enough details about the case. Think of that raid on Greggs as a Freedom of Information request. “I don’t think that anyone should attempt to excuse people who threw bricks at police officers,” the home secretary replied.

Over on GB News, Richard Tice had described what was happening as “the mother of all cover-ups”, but he was much more polite to Cooper in person. Maybe he feels he should save his spiciest takes for the TV station that pays him, or perhaps he fears looking ridiculous in the chamber. 

The most inflammatory takes, both last summer and today, are of course to be found on Elon Musk’s Twitter. Its owner was, at the time of writing, the subject of furious debate over whether his triumphant gesture to a crowd in Washington was a Nazi salute or simply a particularly rigid wave. We should, charitably, accept that it was probably just a gesture of exuberant enthusiasm. Like invading Poland. Or Panama.