It’s hard to imagine British Labour leader Keir Starmer mocking the French as Boris Johnson did last week. But while metropolitan commentators sniffed at the Prime Minister ribbing an ally, most British voters laughed along. Starmer clearly has a Boris-shaped problem on his hands.

The prime minister is a Falstaffian man of appetites, an embodiment of Merrie England. He tickles the funny bone of just-about-managing voters in the country’s north and Midlands, who in former times wouldn’t have given the time of day to any pin-striped Tory politician.

Bloomberg Opinion