On some distant future date, Keir Starmer will have to read the audiobook of his own memoirs. Whatever other literary qualities they may have, they’re sure to be a boon for insomniacs. There is something about his slightly flat tones and his instinctive political caution that soothes even the most agitated mind, lulling the listener into the arms of Morpheus and sending them off to the land of nod.

Until the book is released, those struggling to snooze should seek out a recording of the prime minister’s appearance before Thursday’s Liaison Committee, where he fielded questions from senior parliamentarians for ninety minutes without anyone’s heart rate ever rising above 70 beats per minute. Just over an hour in, I had a vision of one of the Parliamentary attendants walking in front of the press bench handing out cupcakes, and I realised, with a disappointed jolt, that I was dreaming.

Before the session started, there had actually been a frisson of excitement in the room. The first proper grilling of the new prime minister! Until he’s summoned before one of the hundreds of public enquiries that seem to be our nation’s main growth industry, this is the most intense public scrutiny a British head of government can face, beating half an hour on Sunday morning telly or prime minister’s questions. Every seat in the public area was taken.

The tech bros have promised if they can just rip off enough Taylor Swift albums, they’ll be able to cure cancer

Like other parts of parliament, the makeup of the committee has been changed, changed utterly, by the election. Gone from the chair is Sir Bernard Jenkin, struggling to hide his disappointment at the quality of Conservative prime ministers appearing before him. In his place is Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier, also chair of the Treasury Committee, who was clearly excited by her new role, but also determined to keep things moving. It was thanks to her that we only got two mentions of the £22 billion black hole.

The committee has a Labour majority, which helps the prime minister, but many of its members are people who had hoped to be in government and were instead fobbed off with a committee chairmanship. It remained to be seen to what extent this had mollified them.

From the outset, Starmer was determined not to get anyone excited. “One of the biggest mistakes, I think, of the last 14 years, was the idea that everything could be fixed by Christmas,” he said, keen to disabuse his audience of the idea that his government will be fixing anything, ever. Liam Byrne queried his long-term approach to growth. “In the long run, we’re all dead,” Byrne said. And several of us in the short run, if the Assisted Dying Bill passes.

Caroline Dinenage, a Conservative, took Starmer to task about the government’s plans to make copyright optional for Big Tech companies by allowing them to scan whatever they like for their Artificial Intelligence models. “It’s effectively the largest heist of copyright in the world’s history,” she said. He tried to soothe her. There was a challenge, he conceded, in “getting the balance right”. He’s not wrong: on the one hand there are authors and artists who have spent decades creating works that have been stolen. On the other, there are a bunch of guys in California whose stock options depend on flooding the internet with inaccurate articles illustrated by pictures of six-fingered people. With two such worthy causes in opposition, it really is hard to know which way to lean.

The prime minister’s instinct, it was clear, was with the tech bros: they have promised him that if they can just rip off enough Taylor Swift albums, they’ll be able to cure cancer. Dinenage accused him of using the creative industries as “stardust you sprinkle in Number 10”, and Starmer looked somewhere between shocked and baffled. She might as well have accused him of sprinkling cocaine on the Downing Street mince pies. 

Toby Perkins, who spent the best part of a decade as a Labour shadow minister, only to find himself without a job after the election, has clearly not been completely bought off with the chairmanship of the Environmental Audit Committee. He fears that tiny creatures are going to be the victims of the prime minister’s desire to get Britain building. And, as it turns out, he’s right. “In the example of newts, bats, you name it,” Starmer replied somewhat contemptuously, “I think we could have got through the problem more quickly and easily.” With a bulldozer, for instance.

Which was, as it happens, rather the approach that Alistair Carmichael took to the prime minister’s figures on inheritance tax and farms. Did the figure Starmer had given the committee about the farms affected include those hit by other changes, he asked. “I think that it does,” the prime minister faltered. “I can assure you that it doesn’t,” Carmichael replied, driving his digger at full speed through the Treasury figures.

Given these were less reliable than claimed, he said, shouldn’t Rachel Reeves meet farmers’ representatives? Starmer replied that he’d met them, but this clearly hasn’t done the trick. The farmers gave up on DEFRA Secretary Steve Reed within days of the Budget, and it’s interesting that, as they try to work out where the power lies in this government, they’ve now given up on the prime minister, too. Reeves is currently refusing to see them. “The Chancellor can manage her own diary,” Starmer replied, possibly a touch wistfully.

Emily Thornberry, another spurned shadow minister, went easy with him. She has a voice like honey poured out over baklava. If Starmer could knock you out with his reading the phone book delivery, Thornberry should be purring her way through a late-night radio show. She knows she’s unlikely ever to see the inside of a ministerial car, but some of her colleagues still have hope. “Prime minister,” began Tan Dhesi, chair of the Defence Committee, “thank you very much for your dedication to duty and your service to our nation.” It was magnificent in its shamelessness. 

Hillier closed by asking Starmer how he was finding government. He was cautious, refusing to say anything he would have done differently. But he noted that after years in opposition, “it is far better to be in a position of power to change lives for better”. Or, if the Assisted Dying Bill passes, to end them.