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What did @StillWaters mean by his mother’s observation that Keir Starmer had an “interesting approach to money?”

I think Keir is very boring, very timid.
But can we please accept too that he’s that quite rare thing in British high office: a lower middle class striver.

The last one was John Major. And before him, basically nobody.

Likes a freebie. When he was DPP he charged the taxpayer for a chauffeur driven car to take him to work and back when it was 20 mins on the tube

As I understand it, he had to travel a lot inside the UK and the car was to facilitate that. No different I’d suggest to what I guess a Cabinet Minister has access to.

Why does he not travel under hmrc rules for travel that applies to all companies?

HMRC is not the authority on how public or private sector companies manage executive travel.

Indeed, any company can offer transportation for their employees.

Not though from home to home office...that is taxable

And we know that aspect of the expense wasn’t taxed?

Do we have any evidence it was? Lets face it mp's and high muckety mucks seem to get away without paying a lot of shit the rest of us are taxed on frankly.....this is a man with a tax free pension from being dpp for fucks sake...you really think he was paying tax on this perk?

We know from Currygate and Freebiegate that Starmer knows precisely where the lines are drawn and how to stay just on the right side of them, and from Partygate how to oust Prime Ministers who step over them. So yes, I'd expect Starmer's car use to have been wholly within the letter if not the spirit of tax law.

He claims he can't even read his own fucking speech

As has been pointed out, the speech was made hours after somebody tried to burn his family members alive, which was second such fire related to Starmer.

His attention may have been elsewhere.

Mrs T managed to give a speech in Brighton the day she escaped death, and her friends were killed, in the Brighton bombing. Obviously Starmer would have been upset by what happened at his old home, but surely that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have read the speech before giving it? He’s not Ron Burgundy

Politicians are people, some people react differently to the same events.

Some people aren't cut out to be Prime Minister.

When Johnson saw Walter Cronkite's damning report from Khe Sanh, he apparently said "if I've lost Cronkite I've just lost middle-America". If Starmer has lost John Rentoul, it really is all over.

https://x.com/dpjhodges/status/1938873634850001395?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

When is Starmer going to lose you?

I think I was one of the first to spot that he was a diabolical combination of uncharismatic berk and sociopathic liar.

The truth is there are fewer Labour supporters under Starmer than there have been for years. This was so even at the time of the last election. The right splitting between Tory, Reform and Stay at Home and a quirk of our Electoral system just gave Labour spinners the opportunity to pretend Sir Keir was really popular.

Think I’ve said this before, but it’s like a team winning the Premier League on 57 points by winning every home game 1-0, losing every away game 5-0 while every other match in the season was a draw. They’d win the league by 18 points, and that could be spun as some kind of impressive feat if you ignored the fact they’d lost half their matches, had a negative goal difference and won the league with the lowest points total of any champions in history.

And yet, they still get their name engraved on the trophy.

Two things can be true at once. One is that Starmer is not a Great PM. The reason that Starmer Fans never popped up to explain his poor polling is that there aren't (m)any.

The other is that the options proffered by other parties are obviously, visibly even worse. See the head-to-head polling on preferred PM; SKS wins each one fairly comfortably, despite everything. But "none of the above/someone else" generally does even better.

"Vote Starmer. He'll have to do, because the others are even worse." Not an inspiring slogan, but it's won once and may well win again. All those who would like something else have to do is find something inspiring and credible to put up against him as an alternative. It's that simple, but it also seems to be that impossible.

This is not actually true

C4’s Dispatches about Farage by Fraser Nelson had a Survation poll where Farage topped the list as preferred PM

No one scored highly. But Farage scored highest

That's why I said head-to-head.

Reform and Farage do have the biggest single slice of the electoral pie right now. But they are the second choice of very few. See the polling by YouGov;

Labour may be in a lacklustre second place in the voting intention polls, and suffering from low approval ratings, but when the public are offered the choice of Keir Starmer or Nigel Farage as prime minister, the incumbent holds a commanding lead over the challenger by 44% to 29%.

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52251-who-would-be-the-best-prime-minister-may-2025

Without a decent wedge of "I don't like X, but I want to stop Y" votes, Reform are currently on "not enough". FPTP has always been a mixture of positive and negative votes, and having five parties turns that effect up to 11.

I predict even Starmer’s head to head performance will crater over time. Indeed it will get so bad he will step down

Moreover the Tories are inevitably going to replace Badenoch. If they have the sense to install Jenrick - energetic, clever, ruthless, tiny, good at social media - he could also prosper against the lifeless pathetic Sir Keir Traitor

Jenrick would take more votes from Farage than Starmer

For gods sake tell them to choose Jenrick. He’s your only hope. The only Tory with ideas and vigour and chutzpah

If you choose cleverly or stride or whatever you are accepting terminal decline and irrelevance

Indeed: Jenrick could rescue the Conservatives. He's telegenic, vigarous, youthful (without appearing to still be an undergraduate), and can appeal to at least some Reform supporters, without scaring off traditional Conservatives.

Yes exactly

He’s the only one that makes you sit up and think OK perhaps he will do something. Maybe I’ll give them another shot

He’s proved that with Jenrickvision. The fact he alienates the lefty centrist dad Lib Dem Tories is an ADVANTAGE. They are the people who will lead the Tories into oblivion - they’ve already taken them halfway there

I always thought Badenoch would be useless, but she is the right choice if the only alternative is Jenrick. (Tory MPs- you are culpable here). He is just too dodgy personally, although I do recognise his strengths as you've outlined.

The other weakness to Jenrick is - if he's copying Reform, why not just vote for the real thing? And by fishing from the same pool he loses the centre without necessarily gaining anything in return.

If I was a Conservative I would be utterly depressed. Instead I'm watching with amazement as the most successful political party ever falls apart. I would laugh but the alternative is Farage and the chancers in Reform, and I never thought I would say this, so the Conservative party needs to survive somehow. Don't ask me how they do it.

The Conservatives *are* the real thing. The only reason Reform exists at all is because the Tories have been infested with Lib Dems who ran an aggressive campaign (and still are) to cleanse the party of any right-wing thought and turn it into the social democratic party: blue team. It is a farce that the same weasels now turn round and say 'we shouldn't ape reform'.

That sounds like a comment straight off of ConHome.

As if the biggest problem the Tories have right now is how right wing to be?

They f****d up on protecting our borders. They put us through years of Brexit psychodrama for no discernible benefit whatsoever. The water industry is f****d. Our railways are f****d. The housing market is f****d. The health service is on its knees, many local councils are heading for bankruptcy, the justice system and prisons are in crisis, our schools are falling apart. Levelling up came to nothing, HS2 is a shambles, low level crime was overtly ignored. And despite all the cuts the budget wasnt balanced and we remain as much in debt as ever. They even failed on defence.

It doesn’t matter how right wing you are if nothing you do ever works. Except pandering to pensioners and lining the pockets of Tory grifters.

How does Starmer come back from all of this? I do not see a route. There is literally no returning

Unless he gets some weird Falklands black swan, the British public have decided they despise him and that’s that. What’s worse - it looks like most of his MPs and half his cabinet despise him as well

I'm not sure he's long for the job. If things haven't improved by 2026, they'll start to panic (these aren't a strong and stable cohort of MPs, on recent evidence).

Of course, that then begs the question who comes after him. Quite difficult to see beyond Our Ange (who brings with her, her own baggage). Streeting is too Blairite for them and Reeves has ruined her political career.

Next May's Holyrood and Senedd elections may well see Badenoch's resignation and big questions for Starmer

It's quite possible the it will further Tory disintegration, yes. What is unlikely - in a way quite sad - is that both Tory and Labour will hit 'crisis absolute' at the same time. Our system requires two national parties to be in the ring. Change is that really would be radical. The LDs are not going to be the other one apart from Reform. That's the sad bit. The Tories won't be the other one.

Which leaves us in Sherlock Holmes land: 'once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth'.

Only Labour can be the national party remaining in the ring with Reform. No other candidates.

If (!!) my argument is right, then the Tories only future (apart from sensibly being One Nation again) is a pact with Reform.

Why should Labour be the only one in the ring anymore than the end of the conservative party

Nobody has a clue where we will be in 2028/29

Oh, we'll still all be on PB.

...until you're ninety

My wife will be 90 in 2029

I'll be 91. Keep wondering whether I'll still be around to vote!

We all hope so!

How does Starmer come back from all of this? I do not see a route. There is literally no returning

Unless he gets some weird Falklands black swan, the British public have decided they despise him and that’s that. What’s worse - it looks like most of his MPs and half his cabinet despise him as well

I'm not sure he's long for the job. If things haven't improved by 2026, they'll start to panic (these aren't a strong and stable cohort of MPs, on recent evidence).

Of course, that then begs the question who comes after him. Quite difficult to see beyond Our Ange (who brings with her, her own baggage). Streeting is too Blairite for them and Reeves has ruined her political career.

Next May's Holyrood and Senedd elections may well see Badenoch's resignation and big questions for Starmer

It's quite possible the it will further Tory disintegration, yes. What is unlikely - in a way quite sad - is that both Tory and Labour will hit 'crisis absolute' at the same time. Our system requires two national parties to be in the ring. Change is that really would be radical. The LDs are not going to be the other one apart from Reform. That's the sad bit. The Tories won't be the other one.

Which leaves us in Sherlock Holmes land: 'once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth'.

Only Labour can be the national party remaining in the ring with Reform. No other candidates.

If (!!) my argument is right, then the Tories only future (apart from sensibly being One Nation again) is a pact with Reform.

Why should Labour be the only one in the ring anymore than the end of the conservative party

Nobody has a clue where we will be in 2028/29

Oh, we'll still all be on PB.

'Aft'noon pb from Greenhead, Northumberland. I am attempting to cycle from coast to coast of England - from Rockcliffe, near Carlisle, where the Eden turns tidal to Wylam, Northumberland, where the Tyne turns tidal. If things go very well I may continue to Newcastle. If things go badly I may get a train earlier. I'm sure a dozen pb-ers have done bigger and better rides, but if all goes to plan this will be the furthest I have ridden in a day.
The weather is mizzly and I have a cold and a bad back. But opportunities of a day to myself are few and far between and must be seized when they crop up.
Anyway, all this is by way of introduction to something I saw just west of Gilsland: 100 dead rats hung from a fence; the heavy smell of death echoing the bleakness of the setting. Why, for God's sake? A warning to other rats?


I bet it's quite nice up here in the sun.

Just bumped off a full plane at Heathrow. First time that’s happened in many years

I hope you managed to secure plenty of freebies.

They are grovelling. Offering new flight, compo, free biz class return, free hotel when I arrive

I don’t really care. The most annoying thing is that I got up at 5am for this fecking flight and now I won’t fly until 3pm

AAAAAAARGH

Unlucky! The one time I was nearly bumped they offered me a flight in the jump seat (it was that long ago!) and I had a brilliant ride into Heathrow!

What is a “jump seat”??

It's extra fold out seat in the cockpit.

I doubt they ever offer that to anybody these days given terrorism concerns.

I got to go in the cockpit of a Virgin Atlantic 747 at 38,000 feet on 12 August 2001. Reckon I was one of the last to have that pleasure.

More innocent times...

As a teenager in the 1950s, I was invited into the signal box at Scremerston (just outside Berwick) and allowed to signal the actual 'Flying Scotsman' steam engine through on it's way to Edinburgh

I didn't realise just how much effort was required to pull the levers

It is a lifetime memory unavailable these days

Lawyers, particularly court lawyers, have a lot of relevant skills for politics. They are trained to construct an argument and defend it from criticism. They learn how to speak in public. The better ones learn how to be persuasive and to think on their feet. They learn how to analyse a subject and pick out the relevant facts.

But none of this can make up for the inevitability that at least some of our number are just shits. Jenrick being a case in point.

The problem comes with a certain type of lawyer. Who believes that The Law is the Goal and The All.

Hence you get lawyers in management who prevent non-lawyers being promoted - because “specialists might get bogged down in the details”

Many years ago, when I worked in an oil company, I used to attend lots of meeting and conferences. I was curious about the workings of the company.

At one meeting, someone gave a proud presentation of how he had cut costs on a new oil field. I noticed that he had substituted regular steel for the well heads, rather than a special steel (pretty much stainless).

I put my hand up, and being stupid, asked.

Yup - he hadn’t checked. The reason for the original special spec was that the field had lots of water in the oil, and the oil came out under great pressure and very hot. Regular steel gets eaten by that at a crazy rate. Mm per hour can happen.

If that had gone ahead, multiple blowouts. Probably deaths.

My career survived (my manger protected me quite well, in those days). What was interesting was the reaction of all those around the clown - “he couldn’t be expected to know technical stuff - that’s not his job”.

Everyone in that meeting (apart from me) was a lawyer or accountant.

When Johnson saw Walter Cronkite's damning report from Khe Sanh, he apparently said "if I've lost Cronkite I've just lost middle-America". If Starmer has lost John Rentoul, it really is all over.

https://x.com/dpjhodges/status/1938873634850001395?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

When is Starmer going to lose you?

It's quite a puzzle. Starmer's lack of leadership touch and failures would have lost him everyone normally, but all politics is relative. About 60-65% of voters have nowhere else to go that could actually do better or help the cause of grown up politics, except those in the 100 or so seats where the LDs are the contender. So for the moment Starmer and Labour are the only grown up, non nationalist centrist option in about 530 seats.

It may be over for Starmer (though I am not sure) but it certainly is not all over for Labour.

Of course it isn't and indeed the current situation is a million miles away from where Labour were in the mid-70s where their majority was two or three and the problems were every bit as bad if not worse.

Neither the Conservatives (due to their myriad failures from 2010-24 which were either self-indulgence (the EU) or inertia (social care reform) or Reform, whose biggest asset and problem is Farage, offer anything remotely coherent in terms of a policy response on immigration, the economy, social care or a host of other issues.

Governing ain't easy and it was never going to be easy whoever won last July. The party was over, the bill was on the table and we had to pay up. I do think closing off options to raise income tax and VAT was a mistake by Starmer and Reeves but the shadow of 1992 is long.

If you want Labour to succeed, your best friends are time and patience. The next election will, as they often are, be a war of statistics vs perceptions. Labour will wheel out all manner of statistics about how things have improved on their watch and the Opposition will wheel out their statistics and perceptions to try to prove they haven't.

MY biggest concern is the 40% or so who will probably not vote again - democracy is in trouble if the best we can manage is 60% turnout - I'm not after 90% but we should we looking at 75% turnout. Reform could win as loveless a landslide as Labour on an even lower share of the vote - it wouldn't be called "loveless" of course by the Express or the Mail but we know that's what it would be.

The problem of disengagement with politics and the political process is one of the biggest we face and it won't be solved by changes to electoral system (though they may help) but a thorough ground-up re-engagement with people and understanding what it is they want and expect from all levels of Government.