Downing Street’s briefing room increasingly looks like a municipal crematorium. It is a depressing feast of cheap teak and black edges. Other countries announce major foreign policy decisions in front of reminders of their glorious past or signs of their present strength. President Macron recently gave a speech in front of a nuclear submarine. Sir Keir gave today’s looking like he was about to announce a non-denominationally specific period of quiet reflection whilst someone played a MIDI file of ‘Time to Say Goodbye’. The crematorium analogy of course invites a subsequent question: is he the undertaker or is he the corpse? One suspects a bit of both.

When it comes to the government’s ongoing Noncepocalypse, from which the war in the Gulf is doubtless a welcome distraction, claiming ‘due process’ was followed actually rather exacerbates the issue

When it comes to the government’s ongoing Noncepocalypse, from which the war in the Gulf is doubtless a welcome distraction, claiming ‘due process’ was followed actually rather exacerbates the issue

In fairness to Sir Keir, he hadn’t actually come to this intensely depressing environment to make any major foreign policy announcements, merely continuation........

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