The prime minister has finally made a concrete decision. Of course we are right to be alarmed

A question that's been asked a lot about Keir Starmer is which bit of being prime minister is he a natural at? Everyone knows he's not Mr Charisma, could he be Mr Competent? Huh, after six months of bad optics, that wasn't flying either.

- Zoe Williams

It turned out yesterday that he is incredibly good at surprise escalation.

Before noon, we were in a world where the prime minister was about to ride two horses all the way to the US - the horse that supported Ukraine, and the horse that was happy to see a "peace deal" devised by Putin and bloviated by Trump. After noon, when Starmer addressed the Commons, we weren't there any more.

"The historical load we must carry to fulfil our duty is not as light as it once was," he said - which made no sense at all. History doesn't get any heavier, it's like the old proverb about a pound of feathers versus a pound of lead. Unless, of course, you mean history as recent as last week, and Donald Trump's refashioning of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the real dictator.

Unarguably, though, Starmer made some concrete decisions, and that alone was incredibly surprising.