All the hot takes and cold commentaries on Keir Starmer’s conference speech have – until now – failed to identify its most important line. Attacking the prime minister, Starmer delivered the following tricolon: “I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man. I think he is a trivial man. I think he’s a showman with nothing left to show. I think he’s a trickster who has performed his one trick.”
If you want to understand British politics today, everything you need to know is contained in that single moment.
People who live in or live off politics often talk about the importance of ‘a narrative’. Usually, they mean something linked to ‘framing’ (the context against which your claims, arguments and policies can, you hope, be found meaningful) or the need to present policies as part of a well-ordered whole. That’s all fine but it treats the idea of ‘narrative’ as metaphorical. That’s a mistake. Politics is not ‘like’ a story. It really is one. It appears in public culture as an actual drama, an epic tale of cosmic proportions; a battle or struggle for liberation, redemption and conquest, truth, salvation and revenge.
