When news broke of a fire at Keir Starmer’s family home in Kentish Town yesterday, even the most internet-inured amongst us should have paused scrolling to think, “F***, that’s actually pretty scary.”
Maybe it’s because it’s close to home for Londoners, maybe it’s because Starmer is a left-leaning politician, maybe it’s because he hasn’t been in the job that long so still maintains a tiny vestige of relatability, but I found that it jolted me from my rote, unfeeling, journalist shell and shocked me. Just a little.
A 21-year-old man has now been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life. It wasn’t just one fire, either. The Met are also investigating whether a vehicle fire and a blaze at a property in north London may be linked to the third fire in Kentish Town.
Luckily, only the entrance to the Kentish Town townhouse was damaged and nobody was hurt, according to police. But that didn’t stop people from wishing they were.
I discovered this as I scrolled through the Instagram comment section of a left-wing publication yesterday. The publication has 431,000 followers. Under a post that broke the news of the fire, there were multiple comments celebrating. “About time”. “Is the fire ok?” “Shame he wasn't inside.”
I get that they’re jokes, and I get why they’re making them. A few of the people were called out in the comment section, to which they responded that the genocide in Palestine was their reasoning for making such jokes. That’s a pretty damning Uno reverse card.
Because to many people, wishing death upon Keir Starmer in an Instagram comment section isn’t so much “an eye for an eye”, it’s like gaining two, tiny, fake eyes when you’re in debt 50,000 eyes and still losing more and more each day.
Even writing this, I know that some particularly hardline left friends — the kind who take the piss out of everything that moves — will think I’m being a wettie. Even I would be tempted to respond to this headline: “Keir’s not going to shag you, babe.”
But it’s not about Keir. This culture of insincerity is starting to scare me, left and right. Nothing is beyond reproach, and not in a good way. Not in a way that speaks truth to power, but in a way that trivialises and minimises so many things that ultimately everyone suffers.
Anyone older than 27 might think I am making the most obvious point in the world right now: do not wish violence upon others. But on the internet, amongst young people, that is a point that gets blurred by distance, meme culture, and a desire to distract ourselves from what looks distinctly like an increasingly bleak, fascist society.
If you can’t see how your comments celebrating a fire at the Prime Minister’s home might be linked to the same kind of desensitisation that allows us to look away from Gaza each day, I don’t know what to tell you. Keep scrolling, I guess.
Maddy Mussen is a London Standard columnist
