Opposition Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has chided his frontbenchers after several of them told journalists he was "boring".
The Guardian quoted a shadow cabinet source who said Starmer, formerly the Director of Public Prosecutions, told their Tuesday meeting: "What’s boring is being in opposition."
A source said others at the meeting echoed Starmer's call stop gossiping to journalists and present a united front, during a long discussion they called "ironically very boring".
Labour has been out of office since 2010, when PM Gordon Brown — who was also not renowned for wit and pizazz — lost power to a Conservative-Liberal Democrat government led by millionaire Eton College alumnus David Cameron.
Starmer was reportedly miffed after Labour frontbenchers told The Times they'd urged him to stop "boring everyone to death".
"Is he exciting? No, of course not — that isn’t why we ended up with him," one shadow minister told the newspaper. "But there is a big difference between not being Mr Razzmatazz and boring everyone to death."
"There’s no energy or direction from his team," another said. "We don’t need a full manifesto but we do need a big vision, clear priorities and a bold offer. What are they waiting for?"
A poll of 2,000 people by JL Partners came up with a 'wordcloud' of the the most common adjectives used to describe the Labour leader. "boring" came first, with "bland", "useless" and "dull" also prominent. Another poll found voters still thought Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a better leader than Starmer.
Starmer tried to drum up more interest in his leadership at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday by comparing portly Johnson to Star Wars villain Jabba the Hutt, while making references to reality TV series Love Island and trying to sound hip by saying the ruling Tories give voters "the ick".
'Interesting' Starmer
Social media users compared Starmer's plea to the famous sketch from satirical TV show Spitting Image where 80s snooker champion Steve Davis demands an "interesting" nickname like his rivals.
"OK, how about Keir 'Interesting' Starmer? Like Steve Davis but not as good at snooker," one tweeted.
"Keir Starmer makes Steve Davis look the most interesting person that ever lived," posted another.