Today’s liaison committee meeting was not one for the history books. It was a fairly lacklustre affair, with some of the questions asked being so technical that they bordered on the soporific. The likes of Helen Hayes and Bill Esterson sounded more like attendees at a conference panel than the respective chairs of the Education and Energy Security select committees. ‘In Demark, people grow up to be told that a “good Dane is a green Dane” – do we need something similar here?’ was one such lowlight from Esterson. Yet despite such underarm bowling, today’s session did teach us three things.

The first is the gap between Starmer’s stated and revealed preferences. In one quite remarkable exchange, he was asked by Ruth Cadbury about what he had found ‘most difficult’ in delivering his ‘Plan for Change’. ‘Speed and ability to get things done,’ he replied instantly. ‘We’ve got so many checks and balances and consultations and regulations and arms-length bodies… Every time I go to pull a lever, there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arms-length bodies.’ Yet it is Starmer’s own government that........

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