From coronavirus "incompetence" to myth-making about "bendy bananas", UK Opposition Leader Keir Starmer has attacked Prime Minister Boris Johnson's track record both past and present.
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The Labour leader gave a scathing assessment of Johnson's handling of the pandemic and of his Brexit "bluster" in a keynote speech at the party's online conference on Tuesday.
Starmer attempted to draw a line under Jeremy Corbyn's time at the top of the party, asking voters to "take another look" at Labour and assuring them it is "under new leadership" as he spoke of patriotism and "family values".
But he also criticised the prime minister's "serial incompetence" during the coronavirus crisis, hitting out at failures on testing and getting children back to school in June as well as an exam marking fiasco.
And he contrasted his own career as a lawyer with Johnson's as a journalist, during which he was sacked from The Times for making up a quote and derided by critics as a sensationalist Eurosceptic.
Starmer said Johnson was "just not serious" and "just not up to the job" as he set out what he sees as the "big difference" between them both.
"While Boris Johnson was writing flippant columns about bendy bananas, I was defending victims and prosecuting terrorists," the Labour leader added in the speech from Doncaster.
"While he was being sacked by a newspaper for making up quotes, I was fighting for justice and the rule of law."
Johnson, who would eventually lead the UK out of the EU, was accused during his time as a newspaper correspondent in Brussels of myth-making as he warned about supposed plans to ban bendy bananas or prawn cocktail crisps.
And the prime minister has come under intense cross-party criticism for threatening to break international law by overriding his own Brexit divorce deal.
Johnson recently provoked ire from Starmer for accusing him of having "supported an IRA-condoning politician" by serving under Corbyn, who condemned terrorist bombings but has supported Irish republicanism.
Starmer asked the prime minister to withdraw his remarks, citing his record of working with the security forces and with the police in Northern Ireland to prosecute terrorists.
Australian Associated Press