Appearances count

Sally Underwood Political Animal

WHICHEVER party (or parties as we briefly had between 2010 and 2015) is in power in the UK, the press and the public, rightly, hold them to a higher account than when they’re in opposition, out of government and floating in the political ether.

After all, there is a big difference between talking about the person who has the nuclear codes within finger ­ twitching distance and actually being that person.

As well as a natural desire to hold those with real power to real account, as Britons we have one other major characteristic that both unites us and makes us sympathetic to a lost cause; the love of an underdog.

Yes, it’s our natural empathy for a group or individual who no one else seems to support that gets the British heart swelling like nothing else, whether that is the outlier on a talent show or a politician up against it.

Sometimes of course it’s simply that the opposition have it right and the government have it wrong that warrants the slightly easier ride.

Either way though, it’s a pretty rare event to see the UK universally round on the opposition, yet this is the very position Labour currently finds itself in.

Whatever you think of Partygate, whatever you think of Boris, there is one thing most people agree on; it’s not a good look for the person responsible for the investigation in Downing Street lockdown parties, Sue Gray, to now, just months later, be appointed Kier Starmer’s Chief of Staff.

While there is nothing to suggest Gray did anything other than an honest job of the inquiry, we live in cynical 24 ­ rolling news times with a public who are increasingly tired of an us ­ and ­ them world full of both real and imagined back room political deals.

Starmer may have just found out the hard way that however pure your intentions, sometimes it really is appearances that count.