Rwanda, the Chagos Islands, arms to Israel – all fit a pattern. Look to the speech his attorney general made this week; all the clues are there
Political speeches seem to fall like autumn leaves at this time of year. Speeches at party conferences. Speeches at leadership hustings and to the UN general assembly. And the budget speech itself is still to come. Yet even the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may struggle to say anything more illuminating than a speech this week by a far less high-profile government member than she.
In July, Richard Hermer KC was plucked from a successful bar career by his fellow barrister Keir Starmer, given a peerage and made attorney general. It was a hand-picked appointment by Starmer, who snubbed the shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, to make it. As Lord Hermer, the former head of Matrix Chambers is now the Starmer government’s lawyer. He is also, we may reasonably assume, Starmer’s eminent legal proxy in the attorney’s role.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
