As I watched Sir Keir Starmer delivering his Chatham House speech in London this week, defending his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza despite immense pressure from his party, I called to mind the famous saying from the 19th Century American novelist, James Lane Allen: “Adversity does not build character - it reveals it.
With Labour streets ahead in the opinion polls, and a general election not much more than a year away, we have to start seeing Sir Keir as a potential Prime Minister, and this latest crisis is a test of whether he is worthy of that label. In many ways he is an impressive character, rising from a fairly ordinary background in Surrey - the son of a nurse and a toolmaker - to become a successful lawyer and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
But although the influence of the old Israel-hating extreme left has been diminished in Labour, they haven’t gone away entirely - and that explains Sir Keir’s current difficulties, and why he needed to make the speech this week to shore up his position. The terrible events in Israel and Gaza have re-opened old wounds in the party. More than 60 Labour MPs, and 250 councillors, have called for a ceasefire in defiance of the leadership, and about 30 councillors have resigned.
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