Sketch: Keir Starmer is sorry he believed the Prince of Darkness

How does Keir Starmer think Keir Starmer’s New Year reset it going? The prime minister wanted to spend the first weeks of the year talking about how he’s helping to bring down the cost of living, and instead he’s spent a lot more time apologising and insisting he will stay in office.

Determined to stick to the plan, Starmer heads to Sussex for a set piece speech about decency. Make the UK Decent Again, that’s the new slogan. That will surely distract the ranks from continuing to plot his demise.

But the PM knows he can’t talk about decency without first addressing the thoroughly un-decent matter of Lord Peter Mandelson. So he begins by reminding everyone of his justice credentials – did you know he was a Crown prosecutor before he entered politics? Now that’s a rare bit of inside information, almost as little known as what his dad did for a living.

Anyway, he reminds everyone that he had a whole successful career before seeking office which proves, he thinks, that he “entered politics not for personal gain, not for status” but because he “wanted to change our country for the better”.

And, he goes on, most people he works with could say the same. They are in parliament “because they believe in service, because they believe in duty, because they believe in the public good”. It would be sweet how naïve is, if it hadn’t had such disastrous consequences.

“But that is not why some people do it,” he continues, tone darkening as he shines the spotlight on the dark underbelly of politics. “And that is not why Mandelson did it.”

Who knew someone with the nickname Prince of Darkness was not full of light and good will towards others? Wait a minute… What if Lord Voldermort wasn’t just trying to protect the wizarding world? What is Darth Vader didn’t just want to create a benevolent dictatorship? What if the Joker wasn’t just a joyful trickster?

Starmer insists he did not know the “depth and darkness” of the relationship Mandelson had with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And when asked, before being appointed as US ambassador, surprisingly Mandelson – get this – lied about his friendship with Epstein.

How could Starmer have known that a Prince of Darkness would lie to cover up a relationship with a paedophile so he could go on to get a plum role with a nice salary and cushy Washington digs?

“The answers he gave were lies,” says Starmer, absolutely flabbergasted. “Such deceit is incompatible with public service,” he adds, which it why he took the decision to sack Mandelson in September.

Hindsight is 20:20, and all that. If only there was a way to know that a man sacked from public office multiple times over the years was not fit for public office. Starmer is “sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him”.

He promises he will “not look away” from the injustice. And so, he will watch on as his career too goes up in smoke.

Pivoting now to the speech he was actually planning to give, the prime minister attempts to shift the mood by telling every that he loves this country. It is a “tolerant, decent and respectful country”.

The practice of those values, he admits, has been “poor” in recent years. “Undermined”, he says, “by political neglect”. He can say that again.

He goes on to attack opponents to his right for creating that environment. High streets, libraries and youth clubs have been “abandoned”, and the right represent “a politics that has no interest in rebuilding any of that”. “I reject that COM-pletely,” Starmer emphasises.

But he’s also had enough of the shouting from his left. Those politicians have been “too slow” to protect British values, insists the man who refused to heed the warning signs about – again – a person literally nicknamed the Prince of Darkness.

Also, while we’re questioning his judgement, how wise is it to start hitting out at those within your own party while your position is looking pretty precarious? Asking for a prime minister.

“This government chooses the path of unity,” he continues. Maybe trying telling your backbenchers that. Heck, you might even want to try telling your frontbenchers that before long.

Several journalists ask the PM whether he thinks he can continue as PM after all this. He largely tries to avoid answering. He understands his MPs’ “anger and frustration”, he says, adding that he too is “angry and frustrated” that the headlines tomorrow won’t be about the substance of his speech.

“I intend to go on…” he insists. Famous last words?