Starmer Begone: Another Dud Leaves Number 10

Keir Starmer and Donald Trump at Gaza “peace summit” in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Photo: Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street.

It is one of the most remarkable ways to fall from grace.  Leading British Labour to a deceptively crushing victory over diddling, muddling, decrepit fools.  Asserting a period of stable rule, if not exactly dull then at least reliable after several stints of lunacy under the Conservatives gone to the bad.  But it was not to be.  Sir Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation as Prime Minister on June 22, turned out to be inept in several ways, not being able to communicate well, not being particularly fluent (fudging “hostages” for “sausages”), an appalling lack of judgment (the appointment of the Epstein-soiled Lord Peter Mandelson to the ambassadorial post in Washington), unable to put together that most yearned for thing – a capturing narrative, a glued unity however specious.  Economic growth was the agenda, but where did it go?

What the British voter got, instead, was the July 2024 decision to axe winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, which was followed by an about turn in May last year.  He retained the policy introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 restricting benefits to the first two children of a family, only to be abandoned in last year’s budget.  To target the rise of Reform, he took rhetorical pickings from its leader, Nigel Farage, and promised a mandatory digital ID card to be stored on mobile phones as proof of a person’s right to work in the UK.  This policy, too, was abandoned.

In foreign affairs, where he was supposedly at greater ease, Starmer proved sickeningly amenable to Israel’s ruthless campaign in Gaza, explicitly approving the withholding of power and water........

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