Does Starmer need a new ruler?

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In the dim and distant past, I was a member of the drama group in a youth club in Penarth, and one of the pieces we had to perform in competition with other clubs was ‘an excerpt from Shakespeare’. I was cast in the title role of what we thespians can only ever refer to as ‘the Scottish play’. An unsavoury character, on the whole, but whatever others might think, I don’t think I was typecast. I remember speaking the line about “this blasted heath” with particular vehemence, on account of the fact that there actually was a blasted Heath in Downing Street at the time.

Anyway, it was the three witches which came to mind yesterday as Heath’s latest successor spoke in the garden at number 10; and most particularly the bit about “double, double, toil and trouble”. Whether the witches were actively evil, deliberately guiding the path of frail and gullible humans towards murder and treachery, or whether they were simply using their supernatural powers to prophesy what was going to happen anyway is one of those unresolvable literary debates about the correct interpretation of words written by a long-dead author. Similarly, turning to yesterday, those of a kinder disposition might think that Starmer was simply using his less-than-supernatural powers to predict the inevitable; others might instead choose to think that he is actively setting out to cause misery and poverty for many, as some sort of object lesson to deter people from ever voting Tory again. But then again, perhaps I’m making it too complex: the explanation doesn’t lie with the English bard – it lies instead with Frankie Howerd’s line about “woe, woe and thrice woe” which seems more apt to describe Starmer’s dismal and depressing performance.

SirKeith did set out to emphasise that it was those with the broadest shoulders who should take the most pain in the forthcoming budget. There is, though, a mismatch between words and actions here – to date it is some of the poorest pensioners and the hundreds of thousand of children officially living in poverty who have borne the brunt of his actions, or in some cases his inactions. It led me to wonder how, exactly, he is measuring shoulder width. Reading a ruler is a simple enough task, even for a non-mathematician, so is he merely reading the ruler from the wrong end, or is his ruler in some way defective? For the ruler to possess a defective ruler isn’t the best of starts.