On the surface, it certainly seemed a very big deal.
Andy Burnham, Britain’s prime minister-in-waiting, had apologised for Gaza. "Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt. We got it wrong and I am sorry for that," he posted on social media along with a three-minute video.
The key word there, absent from some headlines, was "initial".
And that word is important because we need to understand exactly what Burnham was saying sorry for if we are to have a sense of how his moral compass could intersect with a record of political expediency when it comes to diplomacy.
On 11 October 2023, Kier Starmer, now prime minister and then leader of the Labour Party opposition, sat down for what should have been a routine interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari.
