Why Keir Starmer still can’t answer the Corbyn Question

There is no easy or ‘right’ reply as to why the Labour leader supported his disgraced predecessor for years, writes Tom Peck. The only question now is will it affect him at the general election?

Keir Starmer said several times in 2017 and 2019 that Jeremy Corbyn would make ‘a good prime minister’ – did he really mean it? (Getty)

Keir Starmer’s only even remotely difficult moment of his party conference came after it had finished. The traditional round of broadcast interviews that followed his triumphant conference speech were significantly less of a triumph.

He has, over the last three years, done well at avoiding the “Corbyn Question”. Accusations that he fought to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister could easily be brushed off by pointing out that he later kicked him out of the party. But the current appalling events in Israel and Gaza have made that question rather more difficult.

Starmer was asked by Sky News’s Beth Rigby, several times, whether when he said, several times, in 2017 and 2019, that Jeremy Corbyn would make “a good prime minister”, did he really mean it?