QUENTIN LETTS: What a stultifying speech that was… but Sir Keir is the only Tsar now, and he is tingling with self-satisfaction

Beware of lifelong boredom taking its revenge. For years, as he bitterly knows, sir Keir Starmer has been the office joke, the nasal proceduralist, a crashing nerd to avoid at the Christmas party. The droning regurgitator of one or two ‘funny’ stories. “Did I tell you my father was a toolmaker?”

Sir Keir of the Eternal Scowl, whose idea of ​​groovy was that done-up quiff. An aggressively boring potato. One to make EL Wisty look like Ken Dodd.

Now he is about to become prime minister. They have no doubts about that. There was an air of entitled swagger Work‘s manifesto launched in Manchester, and not just among party officials. You should have seen some of the grandees of the London media, veterans of the Blair years. Creamy superiority was smeared on their chops.

We blunt nibs were not allowed to interact with activists beforehand. Message control wouldn’t allow that.

Instead, we were pushed into an upstairs room of the 14-story Co-Op headquarters. From this eyrie I saw the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, which was closely discussed by Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff. She is the one who did that supposedly neutral research Boris Johnson when she was a civil servant.

Keir Starmer speaks at the launch of the Labor Party’s manifesto in Manchester

(left to right) Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Deputy Leader of the Labor Party Angela Rayner and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, listen to Labor Party leader Sir Keir Starmer

The dress code for most men was a dark suit and red tie, just like in the New Labor years

About 200 candidates and supporters sat in the atrium of the building. The dress code for most men was a dark suit and red tie, just like in the New Labor years. One person who bucked this trend was Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester, who was more casual in the kind of designer knitwear favored by daytime TV presenters. Mr. Burnham is charming, easy-going, a magnet for eyeballs. He should look at that rag-tag starmer and moan about the injustice of life.

Shortly before the event started, we received copies of the manifesto. A spin doctor snapped that nothing should be tweeted until a certain hour. Embargoes usually apply to compelling news, but there was nothing new here. You can find more plot twists in the Highway Code. Detail was minimal. Their real tax increase plans will be kept secret until after Election Day.

Thirty-three: the number of photos of Sir Keir. We had Sir Keir in hi-viz, Sir Keir with Ed Miliband, while Sir Keir apparently got a basic maths lesson from Rachel Reeves. There was one of Sir Keir standing at an odd angle – suppository time, matron – near the cliffs of Dover. We also got his autograph twice.

Labor Party Leader Sir Keir Starmer and Deputy Labor Leader Angela Rayner after the launch of his party’s manifesto at Co-op headquarters in Manchester

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves reads out the Labor Party manifesto

Actress Imelda Staunton wrote a section. This also applied to former chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance, who wanted a longer and harder lockdown. His distaste for Boris and Co in the Covid investigation suddenly took on an interesting perspective.

It was a little unfortunate that the manifesto promise on morality in government (‘Labour will end the chaos of sleaze’) appeared directly opposite a photo of Sir K Snorer with Vaughan Gething, Labour’s First Minister of Wales, who himself is currently in there’s a nasty pickle in it.

Warm-up speeches came from Angela Rayner, in cream shoulder pads, and again from that poor guy with terminal cancer. We also heard from the head of Iceland’s supermarkets, a pushy oaf who deplored ‘fourteen years of Tory chaos’, even though until a few months ago he wanted to be a Tory MP.

Sir Keir absorbed a long round of applause before delivering a blistering 20-minute speech. Every anecdote was old. Almost every sentence felt stale. Even a brash young heckler didn’t do much for the pace.

During questions someone mentioned Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer suddenly turned sour. Corbyn, he said, was not only not a Labor candidate, ‘he has been expelled from the party!’

The atrium was not happy with this answer. Only about half applauded. I looked at the Shadow Cabinet. Liz Kendall, Steve Reed and chief whip Sir Alan Campbell clapped. Most others, including Emily Thornberry (now a ringer for Boris Yeltsin circa 1990), did not.

Not that Sir Keir will mind. He’s in charge now. He is the czar, tingling with self-satisfaction.