How's About That, Then?

The Sunday Times has named Reigate Grammar School as its Independent School of the Year 2025. Yes, it was private when Keir Starmer was there. The claim that "this is the first Cabinet to be entirely state educated" is at best grossly disingenuous. If what they mean is that it is the first in which every member had done at least one day of state school, then that is almost certainly not the case.

Certainly not true is the claim that Starmer bore no responsibility for the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile. Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions when that decision was made. In the words of Doughty Street Chambers, on its page about Starmer, now amusingly removed from public view: "He was Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008-2013. As DPP, Keir was responsible for all criminal prosecutions in England and Wales." Therefore, Starmer would have been responsible for the decision not to charge Savile even if he had never set eyes on the file.

But that is in any case inconceivable. We are talking about Jimmy Savile here. That Starmer took the decision not to charge Savile has been repeated all over the place, far beyond parliamentary privilege. Starmer has yet to sue anyone for having made it. Starmer's "experience" as DPP was held up by his supporters as his qualification to be Prime Minister. Yet now they insist that it was a purely titular headship such as might have been given on an unpaid basis to a minor member of the Royal Family. Or, in his heyday, to Jimmy Savile.

As for Kemi Badenoch's making an issue of Starmer's and of Richard Hermer's previous clients off the cab rank, that is cheap and nasty politics, but politics is cheap and nasty, and no one is obliged to go into it. To look after his affairs down the corridor, Lord Hermer has his second fresher this year. The last one is now the Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services, and in that capacity is one of 14 supporters of assisted suicide on the Bill Committee, as against only nine opponents, a split of 61 per cent to 39 per cent, whereas the split at Second Reading was 55-45. Three fifths are new MPs. Only three tenths have ever before sat on a Public Bill Committee. Both Ministers on this one are in favour, even though both of their Secretaries of State are opposed. Several MPs with relevant expertise have not been appointed. The only disabled MP appointed is in favour, whereas most disabled people are opposed. Having never before been associated with this cause, who knew that Kim Leadbeater was such a zealot for it?

Still, take out Leadbeater and the two Ministers, Sarah Sackman and Stephen Kinnock, and several of the other 11 supporters at Second Reading have expressed their desire for significant improvement to the Bill if they were to vote for it at Third Reading. Many other MPs are in the same position, and since there are far more Labour MPs than anything else, far more of them are Labour than anything else. The remnant Left is already mostly onside against this measure, but many of the rest might be swayed by Tony Blair. First by opposing assisted suicide, and then by making permanent the ban on puberty blockers, Wes Streeting may have scuppered his Leadership ambitions, and thus the great hope of the Right even by present Labour standards. Only Blair could save both him and it. As well as countless lives.