photo : Keir Starmer at a meeting of Labour party members in London, the day after the Greens won the Gorton and Denton byelection, 27 February 2026. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA In a crowded and overheated bar towards the end of the evening a few months ago, I received some strange parenting advice from one of those “Labour strategist” types. We were discussing – maybe arguing – over the government’s position on Gaza. Eventually I asked if he could provide me with a decent explanation to give my son who had shown me stuff on his phone a couple of days earlier about how Israeli army officers were still being trained by Britain’s military. “Here’s what you say to your son,” began his reply, followed by a portentous pause that made me lean in closer. “You should tell him to fuck off.”