SIR KEIR STARMER will today become Britain’s new prime minister, having led the Labour Party to a sweeping general-election victory after 14 years in opposition. Sir Keir asked the electorate for a large mandate to revive Britain’s economy and he got one. Labour’s expected tally of 412 seats would grant him a crushing majority of at least 174. It is the largest since Sir Tony Blair, and greater than those of both Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, the 20th century’s two most transformative prime ministers.

No wonder that, at a victory rally at the Tate Modern gallery in central London in the early hours of July 5th, the normally cautious Sir Keir risked an uncharacteristically elegiac tone. “We can look forward again, walk into the morning,” he crooned. “The sunlight of hope—pale at first, but getting stronger through the day—shining once again on a country with the opportunity…to get its future back.” (It started raining shortly thereafter.)