When Labour was in opposition, but looking very likely to be the next government, some intrepid explorers gathered together all the food and water they could carry and set off in search of Starmerism. Those hardy souls who made it back from the quest invariably reported that, if such a thing existed, they had not managed to locate it. This came as no surprise to elements of both left and right who always maintained that the Labour leader’s animating philosophy was a terra incognita because he stood for nothing. “Keir doesn’t really have any politics,” some of his close colleagues would whisper to me over a lunch table or a cup of tea, saying this in a disapproving tone of voice. That critique persisted through the election campaign, during which the most frequent complaint about the Labour leader was that he was impossible to pin down.

Well, you can call off the search parties now. This is turning out to be a very political government led by a very political prime minister accompanied by a very political cabinet. Sir Keir is still confusing people somewhat by declaring that he leads “a government unburdened by doctrine”, but the ideological contours of the new order are already coming into focus.

If you want to get a handle on Starmerism, don’t spend too much time listening to what ministers say and concentrate on what they want to do. Take a look at the first Labour king’s speech since it was led by Clement Attlee. Just because this was a highly public affair doesn’t mean it wasn’t also a revealing one. With 40 servings of intended legislation, one of the chunkiest menus presented by a government in modern times, it ran the risk of being a themeless mess. Yet it heralded several striking and radical departures from what came before.

First, it conveyed a view of capitalism that accepts the free market but not the free-for-all version of it. The prime minister and his chancellor are heavily relying on what Keynes called “the animal spirits” of enterprise to help them drive up economic growth, without which they are going to find it hard to achieve their other ambitions. What Starmerism recoils from, and seeks to correct, is market failure. Interventions in........

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