Latest news with #JeremyCorbyn
The Sun
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Starmer is a clueless, cowardly windsock whose deceit has taken him from loveless landslide to landfill
FOR what it is worth, I am neither surprised nor disappointed by Sir Keir Starmer's calamitous first year as Prime Minister. Sir Shifty was always going to be a dud in Downing Street just as he was in opposition. What has really shocked me — along with millions of Sun readers — is his swift and spiteful attack on the social fabric which binds our nation and our trust in democracy. On July 4 last year, Britain carelessly elected an activist regime, whose sole but unstated objective is to unravel everything that makes us British. In the blink of an eye we have been divided by a narrow socialist cult against an overwhelming majority of decent, fair-minded law-abiding citizens. We are being routinely lied to, ordered to believe the unbelievable and threatened with jail if we refuse. For all his fine words to Nato and to Parliament, Starmer and his socialist rabble are intent on attacking the foundations of our democracy — the rule of law and the defence of the nation. Left-wing zealots Thin-skinned Starmer is not just clueless as a political leader. He is a coward who runs like a yellow streak from every tough decision that crosses his desk. Indeed, our windsock PM has just surrendere d even the pretence of leadership. This week, he became the publicly humiliated hostage of the Corbynite left he once boasted of defeating. Close to collapse, Downing Street has abjectly surrendered over a piffling £5billion cut in the bloated welfare bill. This places Starmer at the mercy of Jeremy's loony left. Two-Tier Keir might continue to strut the world stage as an international statesman. But this emperor has no clothes. If he cannot cut a few quid off the handouts to nine million people on employment-related benefits, how can he persuade left-wing zealots to cough up billions for defence? Or to cut illegal immigration and 'smash the gangs'? The people smugglers backed by the Kremlin's Vladimir Putin — as The Sun revealed this week — will keep sending us tens of thousands of bearded young men of fighting age. Corbynites do not believe in borders. Nor do they believe in crime and punishment — unless there is a Tory in the dock. Sir Shifty stubbornly defied calls for a proper inquiry into the rape of thousands of white teenage girls by mainly Pakistani gangs in mainly Labour-controlled authorities. Cabinet ministers were licensed to smear protesters as 'far right dog-whistlers'. A backlash was inevitable. Thousands of angry voters fled from Labour. Along with Tory defectors, they swelled the ranks of Reform UK and turned insurgent Nigel Farage into the man most likely to be our next PM. Now, in a screeching U-turn, there will be a national grooming gang inquiry after all. So, landslide to landfill in a single year. Farage is entitled to celebrate. He has reaped the whirlwind from the collapse of two-party politics. Still, Reform has only five MPs and virtually nobody in the House of Lords. Nor is it any consolation that Labour's Pyrrhic victory last July was entirely due to 14 years of dismal Tory failure. David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Liz Truss and — not least — Boris Johnson have much to answer for. 4 Along with Rishi Sunak, Boris hammered the final nails into the Tory coffin with Covid lockdowns and one million new migrants in a single year. The result was a great Fourth of July belch of anti-Tory revulsion, which handed Labour class warriors their 'loveless landslide' and absolute power for five years. We know now that it was a victory based on lies. Deceit runs through Starmer's brand of politics like 'Brighton' through a stick of rock. Deceit is more than telling blatant porkies, such as promising not to raise tax or National Insurance. It means concealing the truth, like Labour's plan to axe the Winter Fuel Allowance. It involves gaslighting — coercing people to believe in fairytales, such as green energy, bending the knee to Black Lives Matter or claiming women can have a penis. And there are petty deceits, such as the gifts to our multi-millionaire PM of free suits and specs, and designer frocks for Lady Starmer, from an ambitious party donor. Sir Shifty stubbornly defied calls for a proper inquiry into the rape of thousands of white teenage girls by mainly Pakistani gangs in mainly Labour-controlled authorities. Starmer's Labour was deep in such tacky mire before last year's election, and it has continued in that style since. We were told porkies about £20billion 'black holes' in Britain's genuinely improving economy. We were promised the 'adults were back in charge', only to see Chancellor Rachel Reeves send borrowing into orbit while trashing our reputation as a magnet for foreign investment. We were told lies about gifting the strategically vital Chagos islands to China's military ally, Mauritius, with the true cost to the taxpayer being in excess of £30BILLION over 99 years. Starmer promised Labour would repair the sacred NHS, only for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to admit it is getting worse. But if there is one single issue that sums up the cant, hypocrisy and contempt for voters by both major parties, it is the flood of uncontrolled mass immigration. 4 4 Labour's traditional working class supporters, many in Red Wall seats, were shamed and silenced after Gordon Brown opened the floodgates to cheap imported labour. Those daring to protest are slandered as 'racist' or 'Islamophobic'. Yet the UK population has boomed by millions since, with a dire impact on the wages and living standards of voters Labour took for granted. Rightly or wrongly — rightly in my view — voters believe this inevitable clash of cultures has led to dangerous divisions in cities and major towns. It remains shocking that police failed to act against Pakistani grooming gangs for fear of stoking 'community tensions'. Growing anger Last year's Southport riots, stridently denounced by Starmer, were blamed on police silence over the racial background of the man who fatally stabbed three schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift dance class. There is growing anger over Labour's plans to create new blasphemy laws, meaning criticism of Islam would be a criminal offence, while police turn a blind eye to intimidation by pro-Palestinian protesters. Keir Starmer is a lifelong pro-Palestinian. His party and his government are beholden to Muslims who vote Labour. Labour lives in fear of moves by Muslim hardliners to set up their own party in Parliament with enough MPs to dictate coalition terms. The question now is whether Starmer can cling on for four more years as Prime Minister. Can his Labour government survive in power? More to the point, how do we as a country escape from the vicious cocktail of tension, deceit and distrust created not just by Sir Shifty's Labour, but by every government since Tony Blair took office in 1997? People want to feel change so speed up delivery. There is still time to turn it around By David Blunkett, Former Home Secretary IF I wrote here that everything had gone well in the last year in politics, you would stop reading. So this is an honest appraisal of how I think the Government, which I support, has fared since winning the election on July 4. The first big decision, which was intended to secure the confidence of the international bond markets, created a major political hit. Namely, the now-reversed decision on Winter Fuel Allowance, affecting up to 10million people in retirement. The intention was to offer economic rectitude and stability, but the consequence was an immediate collapse in popularity. This was matched by the 'miserabilist' messages that they were picking up the pieces from years of chaos. It was true that there were major gaps in public finances, which somehow had to be filled if services weren't to fall apart. But the electorate had already got that message. That's why, across the whole of the country, the Conservatives lost so badly. What people wanted was hope, and what they got was downbeat at best, doom and gloom at worst. Steadying the ship and balancing the books is worthy, but in a world of political turmoil, of populists and chancers, the electorate were looking for precisely what Keir Starmer had promised — 'change'. The truth is, there has been genuine action to put things right. Enormous cash for the NHS; a commitment to a dramatic housebuilding target; and investment in transport, clean energy and education to bring success in the long term. The problem is that they are 'long term' at a moment when so many people are looking for dramatic improvement in the here and now. That is why the opinion polls are so devastating for the two traditional mainstream political parties. As with American President Donald Trump, the audacious, bizarre, sometimes off-the-wall and completely incredible catch people's attention. The 'same old' of tinkering and ticking along feels like business as usual. But it is 'business as usual' that many people just do not want. So, if the first 12 months have been a learning curve, what are the lessons for the years ahead? Quite simply, build on what you've done best. 'The best' includes Britain's standing on the world stage. Dealing with world security and defence; alliances to tackle conflict across the world; reaching trade deals and even managing to square the circle of relationships with the US President. All of this in the last six months has been both impressive and vitally necessary. More of this decisiveness, and grasping of nettles here at home, would make all the difference. For instance, stop using phrases like 'working at pace' and actually get on with the job. One of the features of the last year, and long before that, is a kind of inertia. I'm sure that civil servants genuinely believe they're working hard. I'm sure that ministers believe they have joined up policies and that, when they pull a lever, something is happening on the ground. For millions of voters, however, nothing has changed. That is why action in the pipeline now needs to be accelerated. That is why relentless focus on delivery at local level is so vital, and tangible change in the lives of men and women who can only watch on as global conflict and turmoil unfold. However — and it has to be said — not everything is down to government. The lousy service you receive (public or private), gross incompetence and indifference to the wellbeing of others is as likely to be the fault of someone living down your street as it is elected politicians. This government has three years to demonstrate that they can really make a difference. Three years in which to stop Reform UK leader Nigel Farage deluding the nation into believing there are simple and easy answers to the greatest questions of our time. Failure to live up to those expectations or get it wrong, the consequences will be felt for generations to come. Self-evidently, I didn't get everything right in my time in government. So, learning from mistakes and shifting up a gear is the way forward for Keir Starmer and his ministerial team. There is still time to turn this around.
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
The real Starmer has this week revealed himself: a Corbynista in a Blairite suit
It's the spinelessness of it all that gets me. We knew Keir Starmer was weak. We knew it when he recorded a leadership pitch in 2020 that could have been directed by Ken Loach – only to emerge as some sort of budget Tony Blair impersonator in office. Deep down, we knew what we were getting; no one could have seriously believed the Prime Minister, a self-professed socialist who served so willingly under Jeremy Corbyn wouldn't do exactly this to the country. But did we think the capitulation would happen this quickly and under so little pressure? After 14 years of Conservative calamity, which left a trail of broken promises in its wake, people could have been forgiven for hoping this self-styled beacon of 'stability and moderation' would at least try to fulfil his pledge of a 'government unburdened by doctrine, guided only by a determination to serve your interests'. When he called, on the steps of Downing Street, for a 'return of politics to public service,' and vowed to 'tread more lightly on your lives', things were that bad that voters gave him the benefit of the doubt. After the horror of Covid, the cost of living crisis, the embarrassment of Liz Truss's premiership, and record numbers of illegal immigrants arriving here by boat, they thought to themselves: well, it can't get any worse. 'Country first, party second,' Starmer vowed and people thought, maybe, just maybe, this respectable lawyer would put the needs of the electorate first. But no. Instead we have ended up with something far worse than the Tories could ever muster. In Starmer, we have not just ended up with a Butlin's Blair but a cut-price Compo; a coward leading a craven cabinet. Until now, I thought lily-livered Labour was best summed up by Starmer's complete inability to say whether he supported the US air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. Kemi Badenoch was unequivocal in her support of Donald Trump's attempts to ensure we can no longer be nuked by murderous mullahs hellbent on wiping Israel from the map along with any of her allies. So was Nigel Farage. It shouldn't be a difficult question for any politician with the faintest concern for the preservation of western civilization. Still, handwringing Starmer struggled, calling for more negotiation with a regime that once described America as the Great Satan, murders women for removing their hijabs, throws gays off buildings and funds terrorist Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis to kill Jews (and anyone else in their path). So far, so invertebrate, and then, on Friday, Starmer took another step down the yellow brick road by giving an interview to the Left-leaning Observer, in which he expressed ' deep regret' for saying that Britain risked becoming an 'island of strangers ' because of mass migration. Insisting it 'wasn't right' to use 'that particular phrase' in a speech last month, despite No 10 previously insisting that he stood by his words, he said neither he nor his speechwriters had been aware that the remarks could have been interpreted as an echo of the language of Enoch Powell. 'I wouldn't have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as, an echo of Powell. I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn't know either. 'But that particular phrase – no, it wasn't right. I'll give you the honest truth – I deeply regret using it.' Have you ever heard such weapons-grade gaslighting? If it wasn't gutless enough to be backtracking on the speech, to then suggest that no one in No 10 considered that it might be a bit Rivers of Bloodish is an insult to anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of British politics. To make matters worse, Never Here Keir then went on to whine that he 'wasn't in the best state to make a big speech' because he'd just come back from a three-day trip to Ukraine. Boo hoo. Try being Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a week, you big sissy. Good grief. The mea culpa came less than 24 hours after he agreed to water down his controversial welfare reforms to stave off a massive rebellion. On Wednesday, covering for lesser spotted Starmer at PMQs, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner insisted that the Government would not back down on its proposals to cut nearly £5 billion from the welfare bill by limiting access to disability payments. It took less than two days for Sir Keir to cave in, offering compromises that will wipe out at least a third of the savings the Chancellor had banked on making through welfare reform. After the similarly feeble U-turn on the winter fuel allowance cuts, tax rises now look like a certainty come the autumn Budget. So not only is the benefits bill going to continue to rise, working people are once again going to have to pay the price thanks to the inadequacy of our current administration. Almost a third of all income tax revenue and National Insurance contributions are being spent servicing the nation's total welfare budget which has ballooned by £86 billion compared to a decade ago, totalling £296 billion in 2023-24, the last year for available data. But instead of tackling this behemoth on behalf of a nearly bankrupt nation, Starmer has opted to save his own skin. It's not just spineless, it's shameful. We used to believe Britain under Blair was a Left-wing country. But how foolish that seems now, under his successor. Margaret Thatcher had created the conditions for people to work, to save, and to own their homes. People still believed in a 'hand up' and not a 'hand out'. Look at us now, once again expecting the state to solve all our problems. Aspiration, entrepreneurialism, good old fashioned graft; all these courageous qualities have been quashed by pusillanimous, progressive politicians living in a fantasyland where there are no trade-offs, just ever more government spending funded by soaking 'the rich''. And the worst of them all is socialist Starmer – a man with so little backbone he can't even stand up to his own MPs.
Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Times
Why is Morgan McSweeney now a lightning rod for Labour rebels?
Morgan McSweeney's allies are fiercely loyal. This week the prime minister's chief of staff has been the subject of a series of vitriolic attacks from Labour MPs who are blaming him for the debacle surrounding the government's welfare reforms. Ministers have accused him of presiding over a 'bunker mentality' in No 10 and some rebels have called for him to be removed from office as part of a 'regime change'. The time has come, they argue, for the 'overexcitable boys' to move on. In the wake of the attacks, one government adviser shared a post on social media suggesting that removing McSweeney could spell the end of Sir Keir Starmer's premiership. The post said: 'After losing him it will be nothing but legislating on MP pet projects, the civil service running the country … while Starmer is left running around chasing media stories until the [parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)] panics after the 2028 local elections and replaces him.' McSweeney's influence cannot be overstated. The Irishman played a key role in transforming Starmer from a bastion of the soft left — a former human rights lawyer who backed a second referendum and was an arch-defender of free movement — into the man who took on Jeremy Corbyn and overhauled the Labour Party. • Profile: Who is Morgan McSweeney? With McSweeney at his side, Starmer moved firmly to the centre ground, helping Labour to a landslide victory in the election in the process. The Starmer of today has put defence and security and a strong dose of patriotism at the heart of his premiership, while also promulgating fiscal responsibility at every turn and taking a hardline stance on immigration. Given Starmer's transformation, it is perhaps not surprising that McSweeney has become a lightning rod for criticism over the government's welfare reforms. Labour rebels see the cuts as part of a broader plan to shift the party to the right and appeal to Reform UK voters who want a tougher line on benefits. • Starmer is dangerously vulnerable over welfare reforms The cuts, they argue, are being driven by a combination of an 'arbitrary' approach to balancing the books and political opportunism. They are highly critical of the handling of the policy in No 10. MPs say that a rebellion that was eminently avoidable has blown up into a full-blown crisis for Starmer because Downing Street stopped listening. For some rebels it is deeply personal. 'I wouldn't be f***ing backing down now anyway, not after the 'noises off' comments [from Starmer at a press conference this week] and the briefing that they had 'cleared the self-indulgent rubbish out',' one said. 'Who the eff do they think they are? It's just desperation and it's sickening. Do you remember when Dominic Cummings went to Barnard Castle and the story became about him? When the story becomes about you, it's time to go, so when is Morgan going to go?' A senior government source said: 'There clearly needs to be a complete reset in how we approach the party. No 10 did not listen and did not engage until it was far too late and now they're in a hole of their own making.' Where once McSweeney, the mastermind of Labour's landslide, was untouchable, today the briefings abound. 'There's a bit of 'emperor's new clothes' going on,' one government source said. 'When you see him up close, you see he's not what everyone thinks he is. He isn't this brilliant mastermind. He's a man of the moment who's taken advantage of it, but he has manoeuvred himself into these positions.' Others believe that McSweeney is being used as a proxy for wider unhappiness with Starmer; that, like so many senior No 10 advisers before him — Sue Gray, his predecessor as Starmer's chief of staff, and Cummings, Boris Johnson's senior adviser — he has become an easy target. Far from being political, they say, the move to curb the benefits bill is born of a moral and economic necessity; that with 1,000 extra people claiming disability benefits every day, the current system is broken and unsustainable. People are being denied the dignity of work — a view shared by both McSweeney and Starmer. McSweeney clearly divides opinion. Members of the 100-strong Labour Growth group were quick to defend him. 'It's very clear he gets that [the] cost of living is the crucial issue facing people and knows we've got to be on the side of people who are feeling that,' one member said. 'There was clear alignment on how ambitious we need to be in turning around the economy so we can do that.' • Call for 'regime change' as Keir Starmer aide faces welfare backlash The trouble for both Starmer and McSweeney is that the Labour Party is becoming ever more recalcitrant as the reality of the party's collapse in the polls sets in. Lord Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, said: 'We may have a very large majority, but many backbenchers are looking at the opinion polls and wondering where they will be in three and a half years' time.' The risk, according to some, is that the Labour Party will become ungovernable. 'Keir has been completely deluged by world affairs,' said one MP close to Starmer. 'He's been told by his massive team that they have this under control when they do not. This is on them. 'No 10 has entered complete bunker mentality. Last week, they were calm. Now, they are irate. They think that if they give in now the PLP will be ungovernable. But we're past that point. Pandora's box has been opened with the backbenchers.'
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
If Starmer sacks McSweeney, he'll be signing his own death warrant
To those who have resisted buying into my long-held theory that Labour is not a serious party, I present the latest evidence: MPs elected for the first time last year have started calling for the removal of Keir Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. They blame McSweeney for the Government's dire poll ratings and for guiding it towards eminently unpopular policies such as welfare reform and the removal – and subsequent restoration – of the winter fuel allowance for richer pensioners. Yet in giving such a demand the oxygen of publicity, it is Labour newbies themselves who reveal themselves not to be serious politicians, and who richly deserve whatever fate the electorate may choose to inflict on them at the next opportunity. First, a reminder of my aforementioned theory: any party that can serve for 13 years in Government and which, weeks after being turfed out of office, elects Ed Miliband to lead it, is not a serious party. When the same party then chooses to replace Miliband with Jeremy Corbyn… well, the argument hardly needs restated, does it? And even when it finally elects a serious candidate as leader – and despite the many criticisms to be made of Keir Starmer, he is undoubtedly a serious politician – it only does so because Starmer pretends to be as unhinged as Corbyn, and pledges support for ten of his predecessor's most idiotic policies in order to dupe party members. Now, a year after winning a richly undeserved election victory with barely a third of the votes on a historically low turnout, Labour MPs, many of whom never expected to be elected, have the political world at their feet. They have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the country, and to do so radically, for the better. But rather than accept that all radical change is unpopular, painful and electorally risky, they cry to their whips and complain that voters are being mean to them when they return to their constituencies at the weekend; that it's all that awful McSweeney's fault. McSweeney is the man who put iron in Starmer's soul in 2021 when the new party leader seriously considered resigning following the Conservatives' gain of Labour-held Hartlepool in a by-election – a rare achievement for any incumbent party. It was McSweeney who devised the strategy of taking on the remnants of the Cobynite Left and taking disciplinary action against Labour MPs who broke the party whip. It was McSweeney who was unafraid to tell the truth about British voters: that they will not vote for a party of the Left unless it appeals also to the centre ground. That this still has to be said is itself a depressing reminder of how far Labour has not come, or how much it has regressed, since the days of Tony Blair. McSweeney is an easy target for unsettled MPs. He can hardly respond directly to his critics, and being a member of Starmer's inner circle it is easy to peg him as a 'privileged insider', an unelected Cardinal Richelieu holding undue and undemocratic sway over a captured Starmer. This, naturally, is entirely unfair and unwarranted. It was McSweeney's organisational and strategic instincts that secured many of the 2024 intake their seats in the first place. In normal times a majority of 170 is not going to survive – at least at that size – its first encounter with the electorate, but we are saddled with a generation of MPs who, after just a year in office, seem to believe they are entitled to re-election. Hardier parliamentarians would recognise that the pendulum, when it swings, is not going to swing towards them. But still they're angry. No one told them that they might receive emails from angry constituents warning them that they cannot depend on their (constituents') support next time. A simple analysis will reveal that many of these correspondents did not vote for them last time either, but that is neither here nor there. Things are going badly and a scapegoat is needed. What is interesting about the current discontent is what it says about Starmer rather than his chief of staff. It is impossible to criticise McSweeney without Starmer himself incurring some damage. Were McSweeney to be forced out, it would leave the Prime Minister extraordinarily vulnerable and weakened. Yet a group of Labour MPs – and not the usual suspects on the hard Left – seems not to care about that. Perhaps they recognise that Starmer is not the vote-winning machine that Blair was, and that his departure before the election might actually improve their prospects rather than damage them. That may be the case. But a year after the general election, with up to four years left in this Parliament, the sheer ingratitude and cowardice rankles. To reach for the nuclear button at the first sign of trouble is the act of unserious people. There will be many more challenges that this Government will have to face before polling day in 2029, and some of them may conceivably be worse than recent travails. That's politics. That's what MPs signed up for when they agreed to be Labour candidates. Didn't they know this? Didn't their mums tell them?
Evening Standard
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
That wasn't very socialist of you, Michael Eavis — avoiding inheritance tax is hypocritical
Eavis and Glastonbury are — in case you've been living under a rock for the past 55 years — by-words for socialist principles. Raised in a working-class Methodist farming family, Eavis has maintained working for social good is what 'gets me up in the morning'. As he told the BBC in 2018, he is more concerned with his legacy being 'what I've done for humanity than what I've done for myself'. He refers to 'my socialism,' in interviews. And this is the festival, lest we forget, that became synonymous with the chant 'oh Jeremy Corbyn'.
