Keir Starmer prepares for Downing Street

The Labour leader's opposition to a "ceasefire" in Gaza is a demonstration of leadership and seriousness.

Leadership often means telling people they are wrong. This is especially important - and necessary - when the people busy being wrong are on your side. Sir Keir Starmer appears to understand this, which helps explain why this morning he reiterated his support for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting in Gaza and his opposition to a “ceasefire” that is, firstly, unachievable and secondly, invariably couched in terms so asymmetric it becomes a kind of injustice of its own.

As I’ve written in a quick piece for The Times, it is a feature of the moment that the press - and perhaps the country too - now pay more attention to what the leader of the opposition has to say than they do to the prime minister’s remarks on the same subject.

The rules of journalism demand constant novelty, however. It is reasonable to look at polling and recent election results and ask: is there anything Starmer can do to lose the general election next year? Once you ask that question, you have to come up with some…