We often complain about ‘career politicians’; by whom is meant those who have had no other careers before becoming politicians, and so have little experience of what might be called the ‘real life’ of those they are supposed to be representing. Sir Keir Starmer is definitely not one of those, having pursued a long and highly distinguished career outside politics, before campaigning for a UK Parliamentary seat in 2015, and rising to Prime Minister last year. People are now saying that however good Starmer may have been as a lawyer, he lacks the political skills that might have enabled him to avoid the trouble he finds himself in today, if he had pursued a more ‘career politician’ route earlier on. It’s Starmer’s political judgment that reckoned to be at fault: either in appointing Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador to Washington in the first place in view of the latter’s friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein; or for his sacking the Permanent Head of the Foreign Office Sir ‘Olly’ Robins for (apparently) not alerting him to Mandelson’s (marginally) failed vetting, on other grounds, when it was later revealed.

I have to admit that when Starmer made this appointment originally, I was one (of many) who thought it was a brilliant wheeze; unusually for the generally solid and grey Sir Keir, giving him a bit of the necessary chutzpah that he otherwise lacked. Mandelson was notoriously oily and snakelike (he had been sacked from two earlier government posts); but wasn’t that just what was required in the snake-pit which is Trump’s Washington currently? But of course that all fell apart after the Epstein revelations; and Starmer was landed with the fallout.

A shame, in view of all the good he seems to be doing on the international front. Will he survive? I imagine so, in the shortish term at least. A problem for the Labour Party is that it hasn’t got an obvious successor. Angela Raynor? Andy Burnham, the well-regarded Mayor of Manchester? But he’s not even got a Parliamentary seat. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, much in the public eye just now? Maybe. Bring back Corbyn? No chance, of course. – But can I suggest another former loser:

Ed Miliband. I thought he was unlucky in his first go as Labour leader. (He’s the one in the middle.)