It’s Easter Monday, and we have passed the one-year anniversary of Keir Starmer’s leadership of Labour.

Unsurprisingly, there’s no discernible sign of a resurrection on either front.

He has now vowed to ‘take off the mask’ (presumably a metaphorical one), to ‘open the throttle’, and to show us all why he should be the next prime minister.

Woah, could this be ‘game on’ for the namesake of Keir Hardie?

Hardly.

Some cards on the table would most certainly be welcome, but it is telling that in the midst of a crisis of COVID and of Government incompetence he had never nailed his colours to the mast and accelerated into the fray.

Even with a nation crying out for something.

The harsh truth is that the real opposition has long since been a band of backbench Conservatives.

But it’s not baffling. Keith cannot open his mind to the nation because everything he holds dear is based on positioning and not principles.

He’s hoping to plot a path to power that is based on the careful reaction to the deeds of others rather than on his own blazed trail. That has been patently evident during an extended leadership hibernation during the most politically fertile period in several generations.

Even that strategy is problematic, though, because he remains paralysed even when presented with a succession of open goals.

Keith is the guy who might well rout some haywire lefties during his tenure, but he won’t be making it up to the starting gate at Number 10. The only potential he has shown is to become a thinking man’s Kinnock, but unlike Kinnochio he won’t get more than one single crack at the electorate.

For stark evidence of his desperation, he has leapt onto the flagwagon, which is gap-fill territory for Tory loons who have either run out of ideas or are seeking quick-fix distractions.

Both apply to the Labour Leader – slice him down the middle, and he is scarcely different from many other goons in the Tory cabal. Just another establishment careerist, who might not be an overtly puce gammon but is hardly enthusiastic for principal positions that challenge the rightist froth.

‘Don’t call me Sir Keir, but no, I’m not going to hand my knighthood back’.

Man of the people.

I think we know the direction of travel on this one. It’s not going to be ‘game on’ but just more gammon.

I can’t wait for the next 12 months.