Starmer's REAL opposition is mutinous MPs who have strangled every meaningful change… he must know it's all over for him

The Sun

11 hours ago

FIFTY years since the release of Jaws, and almost exactly one year after that Labour landslide, the opposition smell blood in the water.
And nothing can stop them from coming for Keir 'Sharkbait' Starmer now.
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Sharkbait is desperately paddling for the beach because, in his heart, he must know it is all over for him. The opposition has seen to it.
The opposition? No, not Farage 's Reform UK or Badenoch 's Conservative Party.
The REAL opposition to Starmer 's fragile reign are all those Labour backbenchers who are beyond Keir's control, or the will of his Whips, and have forced him into yet another humiliating U-turn.
On Tuesday, this Labour Government was planning to pass its landmark , trimming a modest £5 billion from the £66 billion that health-related will cost the British taxpayer by the end of the decade.
On Tuesday, this Labour Government was planning to pass its landmark welfare bill, trimming a modest £5billion from the £66billion that health-related benefits will cost the British taxpayer by the end of the decade.
And they could not do it.
More than 120 Labour MPs banded together to kill Sir Keir's modest plans to restrict benefits. By succeeding, they leave Starmer in office but hardly in power.
In the coming days we will hear much talk about Starmer's weakness.
He will be called a dead man walking. A lame duck quacking. A dead parrot of a PM.
But do we really believe that ANY Labour Prime Minister would be able to persuade Labour's backbenchers that the billions blown on benefits has become unsustainable?
The truth is that Labour are uncomfortable in Government.
Keir Starmer 'to BACK DOWN' on benefits cuts as he faces major revolt from MPs
Labour have no stomach for taming public spending. They never will.
Keir Starmer should be driving through the changes that he promised. But he exists in a universe of U-turns.
Starmer has already had to repent for taking the winter fuel payment away from pensioners.
The Government is now looking at scrapping the two-child benefit cap — even though Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson warns, 'It would cost a lot of money.'
Because Labour MPs don't like it.
The real problem is not Sharkbait Starmer.
The problem is a Labour Party who were in their comfort zone when they were in opposition.
The Labour backbenchers don't WANT to balance the books.
They want to be virtuous. And that is fine when you are in opposition.
Whelk stall
The performative politics work well when you are free to jeer and virtue-signal from the sidelines.
But this Friday will be exactly one year since Labour's General Election victory. And every meaningful change that Starmer has attempted has been strangled at birth by his mutinous MPs.
Sharkbait's welfare reforms will fail – or be so watered down that they are rendered meaningless. Instead, your taxes will rise.
We will hear lots of blah-blah-blah about those with 'the broadest shoulders' paying more but this is a total lie. The rich can't get out of the UK fast enough.
The increased tax burden will fall on the ordinary working man and woman. And Labour's allergy to taming public spending does NOT prove that they are fonts of human kindness.
It just shows that they are totally unsuited to running a whelk stall, let alone our country.
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SERVE A LOVE MATCH
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WIMBLEDON starts tomorrow and the thoughts of all true tennis fans turn inevitably to romance.
Carlos Alcaraz, world number two, and British number one Emma Raducanu will both be in Wimbledon singles action and will play mixed doubles together at the US Open a little later in the summer.
And rumours abound that Emma and Carlos, inset, may have a relationship that extends beyond the court, where love means nothing, to the world beyond, where love is all.
It has been a while since tennis had a great love story.
The big four – Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray – all married sweethearts from their teenage years.
The UK's Katie Boulter and Australia's Alex de Minaur are engaged and an adorable couple – but lacking the star power of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf in the Nineties, or Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors in the Seventies.
Alcaraz and Raducanu, both 22, would be on that level. Their union would transcend tennis, exerting the fascination of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.
But what would we call them? Raducaraz? Alcacanu? Raducarlos?
If their relationship blossoms – and old romantics will feel that Emma and Carlos are made for each other – then let's hope they have a happier ending than Brangelina and Bennifer.
Cool? You're Kiddin'
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FROM the young members of The Who dozing under our nation's flag in the Sixties, to Noel Gallagher 's red, white and blue Epiphone guitar, Union Jacks and gilded youth are never really out of style.
But most experts agree that the apex of Britpop was when Vanity Fair magazine put Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit on the cover in 1997, when even their pillows and the duvet were made from the Union flag.
With Oasis about to go back on the road, Tatler magazine has declared – Cool Britannia is Back!
That Vanity Fair cover was so iconic that you get Tatler's reference at first sight.
Tatler's cover models are Molly Moorish-Gallagher, daughter of Liam Gallagher, and Sonny Ashcroft, son of Richard Ashcroft of the Verve, who is a support act for Oasis.
Lovely youngsters, for sure. But they – let's face it – would never be on the cover of a magazine if it wasn't for the fact they are somebody's son and somebody's daughter.
And the rampant nepotism on show is the big difference between then and now.
Back during the heady days of Britpop, nobody gave a toss who your parents were.
Zelensky survives assassination plot
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UKRAINE President Volodymyr Zelensky has been in the news for so long we take this hero for granted.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden was in the White House and Boris was in 10 Downing Street.
Now come reports that Zelensky survived a plot on his life by Russia's FSB spy service.
Ukraine's own spooks say the would-be assassin was a retired military officer recruited 'decades earlier'.
Russia's murderous threat to Zelensky will be there for the rest of his life. We should be in no doubt – he is what a hero looks like.
Denis gets Bond bout
THE director of the next James Bond film will be Denis Villeneuve.
And we already know the French-Canadian will do a grand job at reinventing 007 because he gloriously rebooted Ridley Scott's Blade Runner with his own Blade Runner 2049.
If Villeneuve can do it with an icon like Blade Runner, then he can do it with a brand like Bond.
Villeneuve is the best thing to happen to 007 since Daniel Craig pulled on those baby-blue budgie smugglers for Casino Royale in 2006.
Long story short, Daisy made the cut
I KNOW I watched American action-comedy The Dukes Of Hazzard because I have vague memories of a brace of amiable young rednecks, an orange hot-rod and a fat man in a white suit – Boss Hogg? – who was some kind of authority figure.
But what I can never forget about The Dukes Of Hazzard – what is seared into my memory and engraved on my soul – is Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke, who was revered for her cut-off denim shorts.
Catherine Bach's Daisy was one of a kind, and now the shorts she wore so well have officially entered the English English Dictionary.
They entered our hearts half a lifetime ago.