Starmer summoned the press yesterday to witness history, and instead delivered a masterclass in saying absolutely nothing.
The great and the good of the British media were summoned, as if by royal decree, to Downing Street, hauled across London through delays and the quiet despair of the Central line, only to discover they had been cast as extras in a production titled Much Ado About Absolutely Nothing.
It was, depending on your temperament, either an elaborate April Fool’s joke or the most expensive group meditation session ever staged by the British state.
In fairness, one must admire the scale of the operation. Cameras primed, BBC graphics screaming “BREAKING,” presenters leaning forward with that deliciously grave expression usually reserved for asteroid impacts or Prime Ministerial resignations (if only). And then, out he came, solemn, clearing his throat with all the warmth of a Dalek, radiating the calm authority of a man about to say something of consequence.
He did not.
As Tim Stanley put it in yesterday’s Telegraph: “Our glorious leader broke nothing. Except the viewer’s soul… The Government was moving ‘at pace… for peace’,” blending Neville Chamberlain with David Brent in a way that managed to sound busy while meaning absolutely nothing at all.
We were treated to a sort of linguistic fog machine, pumping out phrases like “moving at pace” and “exploring every avenue” until the entire room was thick with the warm mist of administrative intention. Not action, you understand, never anything so vulgar, but intention, which is far tidier and considerably less binding.
And then came the incantation.
“I’ve been very clear.”
Again.
“I’ve been very clear.”
And again, with the serene insistence of a man attempting to hypnotise a particularly sceptical toaster.
“I’ve been very clear.”
By this point, one half expected a plunger to emerge from the lectern. There is something so robotic about it all, a cadence that suggests not persuasion but programming. Less Churchill, more appliance. If clarity were measured in repetition alone, we would all now be basking in blinding illumination. Instead, we’re squinting into the same old murk.
One searches, as ever, for something, anything to cling to. There never is. Can anyone remember anything Starmer has actually said?
Of course there was the now-legendary “release the sausages,” which still hangs in the national consciousness like a surrealist painting nobody quite understands but everyone remembers. And the equally delicate branding of assorted members of the public as “far-right thugs,” a phrase deployed with the breezy confidence of someone absolutely certain it will land well at dinner parties.
But beyond these greatest hits, the cupboard is rather bare.
What we get instead is the politics of perpetual prelude. Announcements about discussions, frameworks for conversations, coalitions for potential future considerations. It is governance as an endless trailer for a film that never quite premieres.
Meetings, of course, loom large. Meetings with allies, meetings with enermies, meetings with planners, meetings with business leaders, meetings so abundant that one begins to suspect they are breeding in the dark. Somewhere, surely, there is a meeting about how best to communicate the outcomes of previous meetings, which themselves concluded that further meetings would be beneficial.
Meanwhile, the press corps, those noble pilgrims of the pavement, are beginning to wonder whether the journey is worth it. There are whispers, quiet, heretical whispers, that one might glean more actionable insight from watching a coat of magnolia dry on a damp Tuesday afternoon.
At least the paint, in time, reveals a result.
And yet they come. They always come. Because there is always the possibility, however faint, that this time, something might actually be said. That clarity might finally accompany the claim of it. That substance might, against all odds, RSVP.
It never does.
What remains is a peculiar kind of performance art, the confident delivery of sentences that sound meaningful, feel important, and dissolve entirely on contact with reality. A masterclass, if you like, in saying nothing so fluently it almost resembles something.
Almost.
Until the next summons, then. Comfortable shoes advised. Low expectations essential.
I’ve been very clear.
By Claire Bullivant
