Rachel Reeves [Chris McAndrew]

THE Labour leadership may not yet be showing off their policies – Harrington still wonders what the gameplan is to deal with poverty, housing, the environment and so on – but they are at least trying to give us a bit of their personality.

Sadly, we know what happens whenever this is attempted and very front-line politicians are able to pull off the “down with the kids” shtick effectively.

Take the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves who told LBC this month that her favourite musician was Beyoncé. Maybe this felt like a bit of a stock answer – it sounds like the sort of thing ripped from Wikipedia – so she was asked which of the singer’s songs were her favourites. “Lemonade”, she said confidently.

Ms Reeves will try hard to sing along to that one. It’s the name of an album, not a song. Good try!

There were similar grooves and mooves from Sir Keir Starmer, the party leader who insisted publicly once again that he’s a big fan of Stormzy’s music.

“The latest Stormzy album is fantastic,” he enthused to The Times this week. “Anyone who has liked bands like Velvet Underground will hear some of that coming through in Stormzy’s music now.”

Uh? Do write in if you too can trace Sir Keir’s mysterious link between Lou Reed’s lullabies and Gang Signs & Prayer.