Starmer needs to stop sweating the small stuff and be bold on Europe

Imagine seeing someone in the street being beaten up by a mob, and even those who arrive to help aiming a few punches and kicks of their own at the victim's head because, they say, his assailants have some "legitimate concerns".

- Tom Baldwin

This is how British politics has too often seemed over the past decade, with despair and outrage metastasising to such an extent that it may no longer be possible to keep control.

Much of it began 10 years ago. David Cameron was locked in makeor-break negotiations with the EU on what he called "real problems" - especially about immigration - over which, he said, the British people "have understandably become frustrated". If Brussels didn't agree to his demands, the then prime minister warned, he would campaign for Brexit himself in the referendum he planned to hold.

Well, he didn't get all of what he wanted, didn't campaign to leave, and didn't last much longer as prime minister. Each of his five successors in Downing Street, including Keir Starmer, have since set new records for unpopularity among what appears to be a perpetually seething electorate. All of them, at various times and in different ways, have copied Cameron's mistake by choosing to echo some of the shrillest expressions of discontent in the belief that they will somehow assuage it.

I was reminded of this the other day when talking to a senior figure in the current administration about the BBC, an organisation which so often appears muddled itself over how to reflect what the public thinks. "Of course," this person said, the broadcaster was a keystone in our democracy, "so we must reform it and then defend it".