The moment Keir Starmer revealed himself to be a hardcore Blairite

It was a pretty dull speech in Milton Keynes – so far, so Keir. But, says John Rentoul, the Labour leader then asked for questions – and something rather surprising happened…

Labour leader Starmer gives a speech in Silverstone, to mark the fourth anniversary of his party’s most recent electoral wipeout (PA)

One sentence in Keir Starmer’s speech in Milton Keynes today stood out: “Working people up and down our country looked at my party, looked at how we’d lost our way, not just under Jeremy Corbyn, but for a while – and they said ‘no’.”

The speech marked the fourth anniversary of Labour’s crushing defeat on this day in 2019. As such, the Labour leader is playing politics on “easy” mode. He is trying to avoid interrupting the Conservative Party while it is making the mistake of refighting the Brexit wars. But he doesn’t want to hide away.

He wants to be visible, looking confident and repeating what most voters already think – namely, that this government is a shambles and it is time for a change.