As the increasingly revolving door of Downing Street spat out another Keir Starmer staffer – Tim Allan, the director of communications, has followed chief of staff Morgan McSweeney out of No 10 – the PM’s mind, as so often, turned to sport.
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“We have run up and down every political football pitch that is across the country,” he said in his effusive praise of McSweeney. “We’ve been in every battle that we needed to be in together. Fighting that battle.”
There was less praise of Allan, who had only lasted five months in his role, but maybe Starmer could have talked of golf courses rather than football pitches. Because neighbours of Allan in Highbury, North London, got an inkling something might have been amiss on Monday morning when, with the government mired in crisis, its chief spinner was seen leaving his house clutching a bag of golf clubs. Starmer, meanwhile, is left with even more of a handicap…
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