Life would be much simpler for Keir Starmer if only he was as clever as he thinks he is.
No one was fooled when Sir Keir brazenly insisted this week that the allegations against him over the Peter Mandelson affair had been put ‘to bed’.
But he could now be hauled before the Commons’ powerful privileges committee after wrongly claiming Sir Olly Robbins – the civil servant brutally defenestrated to save Starmer’s own skin – had said his decision to grant security clearance to Mandelson was ‘rigorously independent of any pressure’.
Of course, Sir Olly said nothing of the sort – his two-and-a-half hours of evidence to the foreign affairs committee was largely concerned with how much pressure his office came under to facilitate Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador.
Given that Starmer cherry-picked from that testimony in the most selective manner imaginable, his version of events was always going to be unreliable. It also seems highly unlikely that the (alleged) misquoting was simply a slip of tongue.
With his background as a lawyer, the Prime Minister is well used to choosing his words with the utmost precision. It is far more plausible that he was adopting his usual tactic of insulting the nation’s intelligence and trying to tell us that black is white.
If and when Sir Keir does find himself in front of the privileges committee accused of misleading the House, the irony will not be lost on many observers.
It is the same committee that effectively hounded Boris Johnson out of Parliament over the partygate controversy.
No one was fooled when Sir Keir (pictured) brazenly insisted this week that the allegations against him over the Peter Mandelson affair had been put ‘to bed’
Starmer could now be hauled before the Commons’ powerful privileges committee after wrongly claiming Sir Olly Robbins (pictured) had said his decision to grant security clearance to Mandelson was ‘rigorously independent of any pressure’
With Starmer’s nuclear-grade sanctimony at full throttle throughout it all, he later described Mr Johnson as being ‘detached from the truth’ and added: ‘Whether he’s lying or not, it doesn’t matter to him.’ Those words may yet come back to haunt the PM.
But there are other, more pressing threats to Starmer’s peace of mind. Next Tuesday Sir Philip Barton, Sir Olly’s predecessor as permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, is set to face questions about whether he was asked by the PM’s former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, to ‘just f****** approve’ the Mandelson appointment – and if he quit his job early because of the pressure.
The shadow of further, potentially even more damaging documents about the Mandelson affair also hangs over No 10.
Meanwhile, as dissent grows in the Labour ranks, Sir Keir’s authority is ebbing away with each passing day.
To borrow the sort of footballing analogy that he himself might use in one of his pitiful attempts to sound like a man of the people, the PM is edging ever closer to losing the dressing room.
With election wipeout in next month’s local election almost certain, potential successors are already jockeying for position. It is only a matter of time before they start circling like vultures.
Does Starmer realise that the game is up? Perhaps, but it is difficult to look at him without thinking of those Japanese soldiers who believed the Second World War was still being fought in the 1970s.
Whether he falls on his sword sooner rather than later remains to be seen. For now, he looks more inclined to put himself through death by a thousand cuts. But either way Sir Keir is doomed.