The new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has just one word of advice to the England manager Gareth Southgate ahead of tonight’s Euro 2024 semi final against the Netherlands: “Win!”
Sir Keir, a keen football fan, was asked by reporters travelling with him to the Nato summit in Washington about the crunch match later.
He said he was fearful he would miss the game and might be reliant on his officials passing him scraps of paper to keep up to date with the score.
The match kicks off in Dortmund at 20:00 BST, but the time difference means it happens in the middle of the afternoon in Washington, during meetings of Nato’s leaders at the defence alliance’s 75th anniversary summit.
The prime minister said he had been told his phone would be taken away from him during meetings of what is known as the North Atlantic Council, the main decision-making body of Nato.
He said he had been told by officials that he would be “passed lots of notes with really important information about the summit,” and added that he hoped “one or two of those notes hopefully will be an update on the score, because I’m not going to be able to get it otherwise.”
Sir Keir said: “I’ve sent a message to the team, obviously I wish them well, I want them to win, and let’s hope they can do it.”
And, in a reference to England’s win over Switzerland at the weekend in the quarter finals, he joked: “I’d remind you, England have not missed a penalty under a Labour government in 2024.”
Last week, just before the election, on a visit to Hucknall Town FC in Nottinghamshire, we asked the now prime minister if he shared a sense of solidarity with Gareth Southgate, as both did jobs where millions of others reckoned they could do it better.
“Yeah, everybody in the stands, watching the television has got a better idea how Gareth Southgate should do his job.
“And there are some similarities. I’ve got no end of advice. I’ve had it for four-and-a-half years and no doubt I’ll be getting a lot more,” he said.
He might just be right about that.
