Keir Starmer’s cultural hinterland is a bit, well – changeable. Like almost everything else about the likely incoming Prime Minister…
The Guardian reported over the weekend: “he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem.” This is at odds with two claims previously made by Starmer. When he was about to become DPP, he told friends his favourite book was Franz Kafka’s The Trial. One of his erstwhile lawyer colleagues commented: “I gave him a copy of Kafka’s The Trial today and said he should read it every year. He says he already knows it backwards.” Very on brand for a prosecutor…
By 2022 Starmer’s favourite book had morphed to James Kelman’s A Disaffection, which he listed as his choice on Desert Island Discs. A plot synopsis reads:
“The novel, written in a stream-of-consciousness style using the Glasgow dialect, concerns one week in the life of 29-year-old schoolteacher Patrick Doyle. Patrick is increasingly bitter about his entire life, despite feeling quite all right with the children he is coaching. He is in love with fellow schoolteacher Alison Houston, who is already married (without kids), and who rejects his advances.”
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”