Bootlicking: a guide to pre-election British politics

Daytime televisionTV is a surprisingly dangerous place for a politician. During the 2019 general-election campaign, Boris Johnson was chased into an industrial fridge by an intrepid reporter from “Good Morning Britain”, a chatty breakfast show. In 2012, during a live interview on “This Morning”, a usually lightweight late-morning show, a presenter handed David Cameron, then the prime minister, a list of politicians suspected of paedophilia.No wonder Sir Keir Starmer looked apprehensive before a recent grilling from Lorraine Kelly, a daytime- host. He should not have been. Ms Kelly gushed about the Labour leader’s working-class roots for ten minutes. Rather than a list of predators, Ms Kelly produced only a mug with a young Sir Keir’s face on it as a reminder that he was—according to internet lore, if not to Helen Fielding, the actual author—the inspiration for Mark Darcy, the awkward but handsome lawyer from “Bridget Jones’s Diary”.