The controversial demand for an exit strategy from our lockdown

Keir Starmer has given an unusually candid interview to the BBC. Asked about the leadership campaign that came to an end two weeks ago, he said: “For me personally, I really hated selling myself to the membership, and I much prefer leadership decisions as leader of the Labour Party. I’m much more comfortable in this than I am in the campaign.” When the stunned Coronavirus Newscast hosts asked what he meant, the new leader clarified that it was the selling part he didn’t like, rather than the members. But it hints at a difference with Jeremy Corbyn, who loved the campaigning – arguably when he was at his best – but didn’t seem to enjoy the decision-making as much. Starmer is the reverse. Is that the better way around for electoral success?

The Labour leader also talked to Laura Kuenssberg about his call for the government to publish an exit strategy from the lockdown this week. Starmer rarely ‘commits news’ so again his comments were notable here. He said he thought the delays in releasing a strategy were down to Dominic Raab deputising as “he’s probably reluctant to sign it off without the Prime Minister”. The BBC deemed this to be the news line. But it is perhaps more surprising that Starmer suggested that he could be interested in taking advice from Sweden, where a ‘light-touch’ approach to distancing measures has been used, yet its death rate is higher than in other Nordic countries.

The demand that an exit strategy be published now is a controversial one, and it has raised eyebrows particularly as Starmer has repeatedly vowed not to “make impossible demands” or provide “opposition for opposition’s sake”. Opinion polls show that public support for the lockdown is stunningly high, and although the Tories first thought the difficulty would be in getting people to follow rules, ministers are now thinking that the struggle will be easing people out of it. So much for their supposedly very clever ‘nudge unit’. And there are concerns that talk of an exit plan is pushing more urgent concerns, such as protective equipment shortages, off the front pages.

The leader seems to be convinced that the short-term pain of making this demand now will lead to long-term gains, however. There is certainly a lot to be said for increased transparency from the government during this crisis, but perhaps the call should have been for opening a public conversation about an easing of the lockdown rather than the publication of a document. And the “exit” phrasing is likely misleading: most experts seem to agree that these measures will be carefully phased in and out repeatedly until a vaccine is widely available, rather than be brought to any sort of abrupt end.

Enjoy the weekend if you can, readers. I know what it’s like to be in a flat with no outdoor space, but hopefully you are all set to enjoy your hundredth pub quiz Zoom call of the lockdown. Fingers crossed it goes better than the video conference call on mental health that Rosena Allin-Khan joined last night, which was interrupted by trolls posting nasty material. Note to self: disable screen-sharing by non-hosts when LabourList organises a virtual conference, as we plan to do soon.