He should mind his language, but there’s nothing sinister about Starmer’s Sunak takedown

The Labour leader was criticised by a cabinet minister for saying Rishi Sunak ‘doesn’t get Britain’ – with the implication that it was a comment about race. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, says John Rentoul

Starmer got into trouble for his extended peroration in his sixth question about how out of touch the prime minister is (PA)

Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, said that only Keir Starmer will “know what he’s implying” when he said that Rishi Sunak “doesn’t get Britain”. She was prepared to give the Labour leader the “benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t about race”, but said that “if that was the other way round, and a Conservative politician had said it about a Labour politician of colour, I think we’d have had no end of the confected outrage”.

Starmer had a good outing at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, successfully embarrassing Sunak over his past opposition to the Rwanda deportation policy and asking: “Which member should we listen to: the one before us today or the one who used to believe in something?”

But he got into trouble for his extended peroration in his sixth question about how out of touch the prime minister is. He mentioned “his private jet” and said: “He doesn’t know any schools where kids no longer turn up, and he doesn’t understand what it’s like to wait for a hospital appointment. Doesn’t the country deserve so much better than a prime minister who simply doesn’t get Britain?”