Ciao! Benvenuti to Rome, the eternal city, the home of alleged saints and confirmed sinners. Keir Starmer, fresh from Washington DC, had come to a previous imperial capital, to meet his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni. 

It wasn’t set to be a meeting of minds: he’s a lifelong campaigner on the left, she was a teenage fascist. So, in an effort to find common ground with his opposite number, Starmer had chosen to arrive in Italy enmeshed in – how do you say – un piccolo scandalo.

Of course, compared to the average Italian political corruption case, Lord Alli’s donations to the Starmer household are very small Peroni. There are no kickbacks and no overpaid construction contracts. Not even one member of the judiciary has died in mysterious circumstances. But a scandal about fashion is at least in the Italian wheelhouse. Perhaps we’ll find out Alli has also been paying for pizza.

Certainly Meloni seemed to appreciate the gesture. The vibes with Starmer were warm. At a press conference, she picked up one of his talking points, explaining the importance of tackling criminal gangs. “They have loooong tentacles spreading everywhere,” the translator said, with feeling. 

Nevertheless, it’s somehow Starmer’s gift to make even the most glamorous of locations feel slightly like a damp motorway service station. The effect from was increased by a poor TV signal, which gave the impression that the pair was speaking underwater. (If you would like location sketching from foreign parts, please take out a subscription to The Critic, ideally ahead of Starmer’s forthcoming trip to Australia and Samoa.) 

His words, too, were the opposite of exciting. “We are pragmatists first and foremost,” he told us, uninspiringly. “When we see a challenge, we discuss with our friends and allies the different approaches that are being taken, look at what works.” We shall compromise on the beaches. We shall look for mutually agreeable solutions on the landing grounds, we shall hold meetings in the fields and in the streets. We shall never end dialogue.

The questions quickly turned to the Frocky Horror Show. Would the prime minister stop accepting gifts from Alli, asked The Times.  Starmer didn’t quite answer that. Maybe more revelations are coming.

In Westminster, the Conservatives are showing a sensitivity to impropriety that they lacked in their years in office. Tory MP Andrew Griffith announced that Starmer’s behaviour in accepting £19,000 in clothing and glasses “beggars belief”. 

But image matters in a leading politician. If anything, they should spend more on it. Anyone who doubts the value of a makeover should look at Jeremy Corbyn, who between 2015 and 2017 underwent a transformation. There was a haircut, a beard trim, and a lot of better suits, all adding up to take him from “Lunatic Geography Teacher” to, well, “Cool Geography Teacher”.

And let’s have a quick look at a man that Griffith upholds as an ideal prime minister, the only-actually-convicted-of-one-crime Boris Johnson. Between November 2018 and May 2019, Johnson accepted donations totalling £212,000. In the following three months, running for his party’s leadership, he accepted £950,000, not including £12,000 that Brown’s Hotel spent on hosting his victory party. (It is possible that discreet central London hotels with multiple exits regard Johnson as a valuable customer.) At the time, Griffith found his belief in all this so unbeggared that he accepted a job from the man. But in fairness, there was, from the look of Johnson, no evidence that any of the money was spent on clothes.

What really does beggar belief is that no one in Starmer’s office engaged with the question of how all this looks and got ahead of it. Though his claim is that they did. The prime minister explained that we were only hearing about all this because “I insist on the rules.” In effect, he was telling us he’s only on the front pages because he’s too honest. 

Meloni’s reaction wasn’t picked up, but this doesn’t seem like an approach that’s likely to catch on in Italy’s political circles. They have too much respect for their traditions. Arrivederci, Keir!