Keir Starmer’s patience has finally run out.

I agree Orangerose I live in Manchester too and am glad that Andy Burnham is our mayor, even though we had a referendum to choose whether or not to have a mayor at all, the results of which were over 60% against.
That result apparently was not held to be "the will of the people" unlike the 50% brexit vote.

Yes, I noticed that Pantglas ....that didn’t really go Starmers way!

Isn't it strange how differently we see these things? Obviously, we each have some innate bias. I do appreciate that mine is for the argument that is factually based and his time at the Bar certainly seems to have paid off for Starmer. His comments are simple but forensic and he is doing well holding the government to account.

On the other hand, I have found you could only laugh a few times at the classes clever fool before it got boring, repetitive and annoying and really quite childish. Attempting to move the blame to someone else - anyone else is petty in the extreme.

Like Iam I wanted to be able to back everyone working together against the virus and it seemed to work for the first few horrendous weeks. But really Johnson shows his colours when Starmer talks of meetings to form a consensus while Johnson thinks he is doing a favour by briefing Starmer in a phone call.

pantyglas????points about the letter. Dear oh dear

Pantglas2 your bog-standard typist (in the days when they existed) would not have got very far if they did not check how a letter starting "Dear Prime Minister" should end. Personally, I think the complimentary close has changed much over the years and 'Yours sincerely' seems very acceptable in this day and age. I rather think 'Yours respectfully' might have stuck in Starmer's craw but he is a polite man and was polite in the letter.

Boris doesn't need Starmer (Starmer talks of meetings to form a consensus) he is the PM and has a large 80 seat majority and over 4 years left to run. Starmer might get his few minutes in the spotlight on PMQs every Wednesday but most of the time he is irrelevant. The Conservatives don't need Labour or the Lib Dems.

Johnson doesn’t even need Tory MPs he just needs Cummings

In my opinion Keir Starmer increasingly wears the expression that I have always imagined was the one worn by Matilda's aunt.
?

Quite simply, I expect my ‘betters’ to pay more attention to detail than I do Whitewavemark2 in correctly addressing stuff or they cease to be my betters! You and Sir are in a whole different class.....

16:47Whitewavemark2

Johnson doesn’t even need Tory MPs he just needs Cummings

Yes the dream team

"The Labour leader said he would now be asking for more meetings with Johnson, Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical adviser, to address his concerns about the mismanagement of the last few weeks."

Boris doesn't need Starmer (Starmer talks of meetings to form a consensus) he is the PM and has a large 80 seat majority and over 4 years left to run. Starmer might get his few minutes in the spotlight on PMQs every Wednesday but most of the time he is irrelevant. The Conservatives don't need Labour or the Lib Dems.

So does holding that opinion make you feel big and clever Firecracker123. Obviously, it's not entirely true and yet you feel the need to say it?

Quite simply, I expect my ‘betters’ to pay more attention to detail than I do

But what you were expecting him to do wasn't correct Pantglas2 so what does that tell us? If you are going to try and show off your superior knowledge shouldn't you check it first?

17:37GGumteenth

So does holding that opinion make you feel big and clever Firecracker123. Obviously, it's not entirely true and yet you feel the need to say it?

So does personally insulting another gran on Gransnet make you feel big and clever GGumteeth.

I wasn't insulting you Firecracker. Why did you put on such a vicious piece about Keir Starmer when he is doing his job as opposition leader? If it's not to make you feel good as a Johnson devotee - as if he can make no mistakes - then why post in such an unreasonably brutal way. I just tend to reply in the way the poster wrote in the first place and I am fascinated by the excess used by some to support their hero. It does make it difficult to have a decent conversation, I agree.

But you are right. Time to give GN a few hours break and talk to people who are not so extreme perhaps.

GGumteenth - I did and I’m right on both points!

I’ve not read anywhere that the guidelines on Dear Sir/Title - Yours faithfully and Dear Mr Bloggs- Yours sincerely have changed since time immemorial. Evidence to the contrary if you will.....

Johnson looks lost. I really don’t think he has a clue.

You are not right when you are writing to the Prime Minister Pantglas as I have already pointed out. You being incorrect is fine - who actually cares - as long as you don't attempt to correct others or hold them up to ridicule. If you start "Dear Prime Minister" to be absolutely correct you should use "Yours respectfully" as your complimentary close.

Even the closures Dear Sir/Yours faithfully and Dear Name/Yours sincerely are so relaxed now that if you did still have any bog-standard typists (long disappeared with the advent of the computer), times have changed so much that I doubt they would be query what he wanted to write.

It is a strange way to decide your "betters" and even stranger that you want to.

I’ll stick with good old ways I was taught at secretarial college in the early seventies thanks GGumteenth.

My earlier reference Whitewavemark2 to ‘betters’ is of course better educated, as in degrees etc not in manners. I don’t have a degree (not academically clever enough in those days) but I do have the upbringing not to disrespect people by deliberately misspelling their usernames.

You secretarial college did not go far enough to give you the information you needed for the post you made Pantglas. Perhaps you should, therefore, pause before you ridicule others with your scant knowledge of a subject. I am not commenting on you not knowing but on the attempt to ridicule.

Colleges taught for the jobs they thought their students would get. At some, it was the everyday Mr or Mrs as you might go into one of the few remaining of the typing pools but at others, they would learn how to address a Bishop, the Queen, etc., It doesn't make one group superior to the other but they may have more knowledge.

You might well be clever enough to get a degree but it was not seen as a necessity for the economy in the early seventies so the education was very different and fewer young people were offered the opportunity to go to university. Times change and, as with closures in a letter, people, customs and manners change with them. Don't put yourself down in regard to education, gaining knowledge is a lifelong thing some chose to do and some don't.

(I apologised if your name was wrongly spelt. I'm afraid I do not have to do these things deliberately. I hadn't seen it and it is just another offshoot of dyslexia. The software that keeps me on course doesn't work with names.)

Thanks for the information GGumteenth and no need for the apology in your last paragraph, you haven’t once misspelt my username ?

Keir Starmer is a vast improvement as Labour Leader than his predecessor at PMQ’s.Having said that it’s obvious that whatever help and cooperation he has offered to Johnson is bound to be declined, politely I am supposing ( in their telephone conversation.)Having a large majority, the Conservatives don't need any practical help other than less criticism in public.It sounded to me as if Johnson had thought after their conversation, that Starmer had agreed to be more helpful, then at PMQ’s was simply criticising one thing after the other.
Yes, we all see things differently, it’s true, and we would have needed to hear the telephone conversation to know the full facts.
I did think it was rather untruthful of Starmer though, to say that he hadn’t had a reply to his letter, when Johnson had then telephoned him and they had a conversation.
If not untruthful, then at least not giving the whole story.
That’s politics for you!

The reports are that it wasn't a personal phone call though lemongrove. If I have understood correctly, it was a call to all the opposition leaders together.
Re Matilda's Aunt - no Hilaire Belloc fans here?

"The PM's spokesperson confirms that Johnson's recent phone call with Starmer, mentioned in PMQs, was with all opposition leaders, not a one-on-one".

But personally, I don't want them scoring points off one another and I get the impression KS doesn't either. I think Johnson's problem is that he just cannot admit, or is scared to admit, that he cannot walk on water.

We were in a shocking place in regard to preparedness but we have to admit that and then get on with working together to go forward. Not a Johnson (or is it DC) way of doing things it seems.

Firecracker, Johnson and his government may not "need" Starmer, the Labour Party or the Lib Dems but we certainly do.
This government needs to be held to account. Currently I see the Labour Party and the SNP doing a reasonable job of that.