Total waffle on youth employment given that his government has seen the largest surge in youth unemployment in Europe
I suspect that's because Youth Unemployment in the UK is converging on the higher rates that exist elsewhere in Europe. Remember Youth unemployment in Italy / Spain / Portugal often hits 40% plus in some areas.
Catherine West can't credibly drop her challenge now.
Cue "I was so impressed by the oratory and the Nationalisation of steel that i no longer wish the best PM since Tony Blair to be replaced otherwise i may have the whip withdrawn by the vindictive bastards"
Nationalising British steel is a relatively small symbolic thing. Starmer didn't drop the red lines. All he offered on Europe were words. Useless words. He needed to pull out the stops to save the party. This wasn't it. Limping ahead as usual. Somebody with bigger nuts need to be in charge.
It was always going to be nationalised as nobody is going to buy the plant. The original sale to the Chiness was well dodgy.
Yep, the naval dockyards, defence industry suppliers, and nuclear power stations, all need the virgin steel, and the government running it probably the least worst option at this point.
It’ll cost a few million per year, which is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
He should have announced HS2 is back on for Manchester.
Wouldn't solve any issues at the moment.
Mainly because the current route into Manchester doesn't work - we need to see how Berlin and similar works and implement things in a way that would allows through traffic.
Both HS2 and Northern Power Rail need a cross Manchester tunnel with suitable scale platforms underneath - and that isn't difficult, Bologna, Florence (coming soon) all have the appropriate solution, big 6-8 station a long way underground taking HS2, NPR and all the trains that end up in Platforms 13/14 at Piccadilly.
You don't have to pay council tax on a narrowboat if it's your permanent residence AND you are continuous cruisers. A nice stream of selfies as they move around the system should be enough - if, of course, he has them...
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2m Joking aside, it genuinely does look as if the overnight trail really was the bulk of the speech. Literally nothing of substance beyond it. Some more apprenticeships. An EU student programme. Rehash of British Steel policy. Some Labour MPs were wondering if he'd have a rabbit.
Dan Neidle states the bleeding obvious. The question is, does it matter? As Donald Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters”. As for Trump, so for Nigel Farage, and Boris and even Starmer.
So the question is, will any of this matter for Zack Polanski?
You don't have to pay council tax on a narrowboat if it's your permanent residence AND you are continuous cruisers. A nice stream of selfies as they move around the system should be enough - if, of course, he has them...
WTF do all the SPADs do all day if they dont even have 2-3 decent policies behind smash in case of emergency glass.
ID cards!
ID cards are a Home Office hobby horse aren’t they?
I suspect every department has its favourite policies that they try out on every new minister just in case they get one that’s sufficiently tractable. Usually there’s a good reason why every previous minister has said no to them...
He should have announced HS2 is back on for Manchester.
Wouldn't solve any issues at the moment.
Mainly because the current route into Manchester doesn't work - we need to see how Berlin and similar works and implement things in a way that would allows through traffic.
Both HS2 and Northern Power Rail need a cross Manchester tunnel with suitable scale platforms underneath - and that isn't difficult, Bologna, Florence (coming soon) all have the appropriate solution, big 6-8 station a long way underground taking HS2, NPR and all the trains that end up in Platforms 13/14 at Piccadilly.
Details don't matter. He is fighting to still be in a job by tea time!
WTF do all the SPADs do all day if they dont even have 2-3 decent policies behind smash in case of emergency glass.
(More seriously this is indicative of the broader problem. No. 10 has no ideas. The advisors have no ideas. The Cabinet has no ideas. Where are these ideas going to come from?)
And they were in opposition for 14 years during which you are supposed to generate the ideas.
Did SKS do privilege of my life (top of my current cliché hate list)? Mind you, that usually pops up when a pol steps down or is given the boot, so perhaps shortly..
WTF do all the SPADs do all day if they dont even have 2-3 decent policies behind smash in case of emergency glass.
ID cards!
ID cards are a Home Office hobby horse aren’t they?
I suspect every department has its favourite policies that they try out on every new minister just in case they get one that’s sufficiently tractable. Usually there’s a good reason why every previous minister has said no to them...
cf George Osborne's omnishambles budget and Rachel Reeves' first.
Someone down thread mentioned Talking Heads. Well SKS certainly channelled Psycho Killer in this speech "You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything."
I wonder if he'll get around to announcing funding for the defence review ?
It's been nearly a year now, and some UK defence contractors, particularly the smaller businesses, are planning to (or already have) decamp to the US or Europe, as they can't exist on nothing.
This during a once in a generation opportunity due defence businesses, as Europe rearms while developing new technology.
Which remind me of another Brexit benefit - our partner in GCAP, Italy, can borrow long term from the €150bn European defence loan facility at around 3%.
The UK 20 year gilt yield is nearly double that, at around 5.5%. (That's what the fantasy scheme to decouple defence spending from UK borrowing requirements was about.)
The whole MO of this govt seems to be about announcing goals, etc but doing nothing or reversing other things. I'm basically saying it's shambolic.
It is. What, though, would you propose to get our borrowing costs down to European levels ?
1) You can tax and spend in a balanced manner - your borrowing costs will be low. Markets don't have a problem with this, though your growth projections will be lower. 2) You can tax and not spend, with a budget surplus - rare. Markets will like this 3) You can not tax and keep spending. Markets don't like this. You become Argentina 4) You can not tax and not spend - not sure that this has been tried since... forever? Markets would probably be OK with this
Those are the choices.
No, those are broad principles. The choices are much harder.
I agree that the choices within those choice are harder, but the broad choices themselves are not only principles but facts. And to go constantly for a version of (3) is a mistake.
And we know it is dangerous because all governments keep trying to delude the simple minded by confusing things like debt and deficit. Stephen Kinnock tried to tell Andrew Neil (Times Radio) last week that our debt was falling. Which was quite funny.
(1) is the only realistic option. Starmer's problem is that he keeps putting off making any real choices.
https://donation.watch/en/unitedkingdom/2025/overview has some nice graphics summarising donations to party. Note the log scale! Harborne's donations to Reform (the stuff that got declared, that is) absolutely dwarf everything else.
The whole idea that one barnstorming speech from a man who does not do oratory, to say the least, will suddenly persuade millions that they don't detest him and feel he is out of his depth etc is just risible.
-2.2C at the vineyard last night and likely colder tonight. Coldest May night since I started recording in 2022. That probably means well over 50% crop loss, depending on how much the cold was concentrated at the bottom of the slope (there the weather station is).
This fucking weather is abominable
I’m off on assignment to Northumberland on Wednesday
🥶🥶
We're used to it up here. Blyth, Seaton Delaval or Ashington fine dining?
It’s a short food trip. Lots of tastings, breweries, foraging, etc
I was really looking forward to it. I love Northumberland and I love these foodie things. But it will be less fun if it’s minus 5 and blowing a hoolie
I’m apparently staying in a place called Tempus. Which seems quite chic for The Far North. Alnwick
Nice. It'll be a balmy 12° and as much as 4° overnight. T-shirt weather.
Woe betide anyone who fancied a late spring break to Croatia...
Kinell. So literally the whole of Europe is freezing. Is this El Niño is it too soon?
I don’t know what that’s a chart of but it’s certainly not either surface temperatures or 850hpa temperatures. It’s not hot in Europe at the moment, it’s more just meh, and the coldest weather is here in Britain.
No El Niño impact on Europe yet, though we do get minor effects from shifts in the tropical Madden-Julian oscillation. In any case we’re one of the regions of the world least affected by the Pacific ENSO state.
2m anomaly, if you look closely. So the difference from climatic average.
There is a problem with the oft repeated Labour line, reiterated today: 'Brexit was a damaging disaster in every way. We are continuing with our policy of carrying on Brexit by being outside every aspect of the EU including the bits that EFTA/EEA non EU members are in but we are not going to explain why'.
You don't have to pay council tax on a narrowboat if it's your permanent residence AND you are continuous cruisers. A nice stream of selfies as they move around the system should be enough - if, of course, he has them...
The whole idea that one barnstorming speech from a man who does not do oratory, to say the least, will suddenly persuade millions that they don't detest him and feel he is out of his depth etc is just risible.
WTF do all the SPADs do all day if they dont even have 2-3 decent policies behind smash in case of emergency glass.
ID cards!
ID cards are a Home Office hobby horse aren’t they?
I suspect every department has its favourite policies that they try out on every new minister just in case they get one that’s sufficiently tractable. Usually there’s a good reason why every previous minister has said no to them...
Yes they’ve been a Home Office hobby horse since Thatcher’s day. Every new Home Secretary gets the briefing.
I wonder if he'll get around to announcing funding for the defence review ?
The technological and strategic factors are moving more quickly than they can move the photos of rugged looking squaddies around in the .docx
A lot of vaches sacrées/wastes of money/cherished national institutions should be going in the bin but SKS has neither the political capital nor the courage required to do it.
That is also true, and likely the only way that the UK government can start to square the funding circle is to chuck some programs in the bin.
The problem is that there aren't enough things that can be dispensed with in order to fund everything else. An increase in defence spend is necessary simply in order to avoid losing a large slice of our defence industry. Once gone, we won't get it back.
Lots of it should go. There just isn't the industrial capacity to sustain everything while delivering appropriate systems quickly. That's why it's going to take HMS Glasgow 18 years to go from contract award to commissioning. Hence running the T23s way past their design life until the few that are left barely float.
GCAP will be exactly the same. Years late and massively over-budget to the great detriment of actual defence capability.
I remember somebody from Air Command commenting in the 90s when Eurofighter was pulled back from the brink, "The good news is we've saved BAE, the bad news is we'll have keep saving it."
The primary reason our shipbuilding is so inefficient is that we have hardly built any ships for two decades.
When were these two decades?
BAE and Babcock have had many, many billions and their yards are fully occupied until the mid 2030s at a minimum. They have had more than enough investment.
Nationalisation (red meat to Labour faithful) followed by subject to an inquiry, terms and conditions apply as the full correct legal procdures must be followed...absolutely sums up Starmer.
The whole idea that one barnstorming speech from a man who does not do oratory, to say the least, will suddenly persuade millions that they don't detest him and feel he is out of his depth etc is just risible.
It 'aint like he is Obama.
If Starmer just had a balcony he'd have been fine...
The only good bit was at the very end when he went quiet and talked about his parents. But it was right at the end in a question and it lasted a few seconds and then he walked off
WTF do all the SPADs do all day if they dont even have 2-3 decent policies behind smash in case of emergency glass.
(More seriously this is indicative of the broader problem. No. 10 has no ideas. The advisors have no ideas. The Cabinet has no ideas. Where are these ideas going to come from?)
And they were in opposition for 14 years during which you are supposed to generate the ideas.
As was clearly obvious from very early in this government, they had very few big ideas beyond tinkering at the edges, and managed to make so many policy u-turns on activist issues that they annoyed both sides of each argument.
What have they actually achieved, beyond raising taxes on employment, VAT on school fees which costs money, public sector pay rises, welfare caps removed, and 40-week abortions?
These things are not necessarily inconsistent. Calling somewhere your “amazing home” on social media means pretty much nothing. It’s hardly a formal statement of residence. One can image someone saying that about a narrowboat that they only use occasionally.
Being registered to vote is more significant. However, you can be legally registered to vote in more than one place if you split your time between them. So, it’s entirely possible to be registered to vote somewhere that is not, for council tax purposes, your main residence.
The strongest possible point of contradiction seems to be between his team saying he stays on the narrowboat “occasionally” and his being registered to vote there. To be registered to vote, you do have to stay somewhere a reasonable amount of time. However, these are vague words and maybe his team misspoke.
So, he’s a major party leader, his tax affairs should be scrutinised, but I think some more pieces are needed before this accusation amounts to something.
Nationalisation (red meat to Labour faithful) followed by subject to an inquiry, terms and conditions apply as the full correct legal procdures must be followed...absolutely sums up Starmer.
Even if it is why would you say it in the speech and not just put it in the follow up press release?
WTF do all the SPADs do all day if they dont even have 2-3 decent policies behind smash in case of emergency glass.
(More seriously this is indicative of the broader problem. No. 10 has no ideas. The advisors have no ideas. The Cabinet has no ideas. Where are these ideas going to come from?)
And they were in opposition for 14 years during which you are supposed to generate the ideas.
There are no ideas anywhere. Except for the crazy ones.
In large part because the ideas that might improve things (free up funds for essential investment by broad-based tax rises; act on the intuition that Brexit has failed by meaningfully unpicking it; build lots more houses, for the state of the market isn't interested) are taboo.
Starmer is a lawyer, so won't ask questions without knowing the answers in advance. That's part of his failure mode. But that's only part of the problem. In a democratic system, governments are only ever as effective as the electorates that elect them.
By all means dump him; it's getting to the point that it would be an act of mercy. But lets not kid ourselves that just picking another sucker to have a turn in the barrel will make a meaningful difference.
After this dire speech I would not be surprised to see Graham Stringer stand down and Andy Burnham announce he will stand
Over to you Starmer
Unless the NEC approves Burnham as an approved Labour Parliamentary candidate even if every Labour MP in the UK stood down except Starmer, Burnham still could not stand as a Labour candidate
These things are not necessarily inconsistent. Calling somewhere your “amazing home” on social media means pretty much nothing. It’s hardly a formal statement of residence. One can image someone saying that about a narrowboat that they only use occasionally.
Being registered to vote is more significant. However, you can be legally registered to vote in more than one place if you split your time between them. So, it’s entirely possible to be registered to vote somewhere that is not, for council tax purposes, your main residence.
The strongest possible point of contradiction seems to be between his team saying he stays on the narrowboat “occasionally” and his being registered to vote there. To be registered to vote, you do have to stay somewhere a reasonable amount of time. However, these are vague words and maybe his team misspoke.
So, he’s a major party leader, his tax affairs should be scrutinised, but I think some more pieces are needed before this accusation amounts to something.
Maybe as a politician he travels about a lot and doesn't get to spend many nights at home
Last night I posted a link to an AI reconstruction of the 1hr speech by Neil Kinnock at the 1985 Labour Party Conference. Below is a link to a non-AI excerpt of six minutes of the same speech. Many people didn't like him but he knew how to speech: cadence, timing, structure, repetition where necessary, bluntness when needed. He turned speech into a song.
While Skyr was waffling on about stopping “far right people” coming into Britain, these people are already in Britain. And about them, he said nothing
🧵THREAD Birmingham extremist group Deen1fied is branching out, and Leicester is first up. These people do not care about Britain’s interests — only the Ummah. They created the “Judenfrei” zone for the Villa vs Maccabi game. 1/
These things are not necessarily inconsistent. Calling somewhere your “amazing home” on social media means pretty much nothing. It’s hardly a formal statement of residence. One can image someone saying that about a narrowboat that they only use occasionally.
Being registered to vote is more significant. However, you can be legally registered to vote in more than one place if you split your time between them. So, it’s entirely possible to be registered to vote somewhere that is not, for council tax purposes, your main residence.
The strongest possible point of contradiction seems to be between his team saying he stays on the narrowboat “occasionally” and his being registered to vote there. To be registered to vote, you do have to stay somewhere a reasonable amount of time. However, these are vague words and maybe his team misspoke.
So, he’s a major party leader, his tax affairs should be scrutinised, but I think some more pieces are needed before this accusation amounts to something.
After this dire speech I would not be surprised to see Graham Stringer stand down and Andy Burnham announce he will stand
Over to you Starmer
Unless the NEC approves Burnham as an approved Labour Parliamentary candidate even if every Labour MP in the UK stood down except Starmer, Burnham still could not stand as a Labour candidate
If Burnham is blocked then that will trigger a revolt and a direct challenge to Starmer
'I do think there could be evidence of parties of the left voting for the Tories tactically in Reform/Conservative battle grounds such as Bexley and Broxbourne, if that persists it opens up another tactical voting front problem for Reform.'
While Skyr was waffling on about stopping “far right people” coming into Britain, these people are already in Britain. And about them, he said nothing
🧵THREAD Birmingham extremist group Deen1fied is branching out, and Leicester is first up. These people do not care about Britain’s interests — only the Ummah. They created the “Judenfrei” zone for the Villa vs Maccabi game. 1/
These things are not necessarily inconsistent. Calling somewhere your “amazing home” on social media means pretty much nothing. It’s hardly a formal statement of residence. One can image someone saying that about a narrowboat that they only use occasionally.
Being registered to vote is more significant. However, you can be legally registered to vote in more than one place if you split your time between them. So, it’s entirely possible to be registered to vote somewhere that is not, for council tax purposes, your main residence.
The strongest possible point of contradiction seems to be between his team saying he stays on the narrowboat “occasionally” and his being registered to vote there. To be registered to vote, you do have to stay somewhere a reasonable amount of time. However, these are vague words and maybe his team misspoke.
So, he’s a major party leader, his tax affairs should be scrutinised, but I think some more pieces are needed before this accusation amounts to something.
Maybe as a politician he travels about a lot and doesn't get to spend many nights at home
And it says his other residence was as a lodger in Hackney. So it seems obvious he might call the narrowboat his home even if he isn't there that often. Hackney is just where he stays away for work. And the laundry thing is ridiculous, maybe he just took it home at the weekend and added it to what the laundry collected.
...What have they actually achieved, beyond raising taxes on employment, VAT on school fees which costs money, public sector pay rises, welfare caps removed, and 40-week abortions?
...abolition of the concept of transsexuality, removal of the right to jury trial, removal of the right to protest, removal of access to internet pornography, restricted access to the internet, actual destruction of the Royal Navy, and - I shit you not - voluntary repatriation.
Oh, and they nearly passed a bill to kill the old and sick.
Labour MPs continue to call for PM’s departure “Now is the time for the prime minister to set a clear timetable for his departure,” a Labour MP said while Sir Keir Starmer was taking questions at his press conference this morning. David Smith, MP for Northumberland, who was appointed as special envoy for freedom of religion or belief by the prime minister in 2024, said: “This departure should be ordered and dignified; for the PM himself, for the government but most of all for the sake of the country.” He added: “There is no question that the Labour Party owes a debt of gratitude to Keir Starmer for the work he did to turn our party around and to make us an electoral force again.”
Comments
Dan Neidle thinks it’s a big issue. Not the paper green voters read either.
‘ Zack Polanski and his partner called their narrowboat their “amazing home” for three years. He registered to vote there.
If it was his main residence, council tax was due. None was paid.
His team says he stayed there only “occasionally” - if true, there's a very big problem.’
https://x.com/danneidle/status/2053750730163413080?s=61
@DPJHodges
·
1m
I literally cannot think of a single line in Starmer's speech that he hasn't delivered before.
That one surprised me
It’ll cost a few million per year, which is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
Thats a long way from evidence based policy of Blair years.
“ Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away!”
Mainly because the current route into Manchester doesn't work - we need to see how Berlin and similar works and implement things in a way that would allows through traffic.
Both HS2 and Northern Power Rail need a cross Manchester tunnel with suitable scale platforms underneath - and that isn't difficult, Bologna, Florence (coming soon) all have the appropriate solution, big 6-8 station a long way underground taking HS2, NPR and all the trains that end up in Platforms 13/14 at Piccadilly.
"What about the death penalty for furriners?"
And it was him.
So the question is, will any of this matter for Zack Polanski?
I watched for 30 seconds.
Those who withstood it all and lived to report.
I salute your indefatigability.
I suspect every department has its favourite policies that they try out on every new minister just in case they get one that’s sufficiently tractable. Usually there’s a good reason why every previous minister has said no to them...
There is absolutely no reason for Labour MPs to delay dethronement
Bold. Eye catching, undoes Tory stupidity etc.
And for the North.
At least he would have said something
And they were in opposition for 14 years during which you are supposed to generate the ideas.
He has no answers
Well SKS certainly channelled Psycho Killer in this speech
"You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything."
Starmer's problem is that he keeps putting off making any real choices.
It 'aint like he is Obama.
He surely can't survive this can he?
Obligatory “Yes, Minister” sketch from the early Thatcher days:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/LXThF-9Nyt0?ra=m
His party can't survive if he stays in post.
The chaos is of his own making
BAE and Babcock have had many, many billions and their yards are fully occupied until the mid 2030s at a minimum. They have had more than enough investment.
For a speech like this, the qualification, terms and conditions, don't get said - you State The Case Loudly. Details later.
He’s toast
Over to you Starmer
What have they actually achieved, beyond raising taxes on employment, VAT on school fees which costs money, public sector pay rises, welfare caps removed, and 40-week abortions?
Fun times
She is convinced by his bold speech and that the voters will respond positively to this powerful, personal, calm, level headed, fighting speech
The overwhelming numbers in the PLP will get behind this.
That would be popular.
As for the speech good to see him going after Farage but there really was nothing new .
Being registered to vote is more significant. However, you can be legally registered to vote in more than one place if you split your time between them. So, it’s entirely possible to be registered to vote somewhere that is not, for council tax purposes, your main residence.
The strongest possible point of contradiction seems to be between his team saying he stays on the narrowboat “occasionally” and his being registered to vote there. To be registered to vote, you do have to stay somewhere a reasonable amount of time. However, these are vague words and maybe his team misspoke.
So, he’s a major party leader, his tax affairs should be scrutinised, but I think some more pieces are needed before this accusation amounts to something.
Worst results on record no new policies no ideas no understanding that this is not about poor communication its about poor policies
Why would anyone invest in such a company if the government can arbitrarily wipe you out?
(But yeah it’s a mess, and they’re going to have to do something eventually).
In large part because the ideas that might improve things (free up funds for essential investment by broad-based tax rises; act on the intuition that Brexit has failed by meaningfully unpicking it; build lots more houses, for the state of the market isn't interested) are taboo.
Starmer is a lawyer, so won't ask questions without knowing the answers in advance. That's part of his failure mode. But that's only part of the problem. In a democratic system, governments are only ever as effective as the electorates that elect them.
By all means dump him; it's getting to the point that it would be an act of mercy. But lets not kid ourselves that just picking another sucker to have a turn in the barrel will make a meaningful difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jji0JS5TPFk
Starmer gave a speech this morning. I didn't listen. There was no point.
It was a decent enough speech. Not a game changer either way. It was never likely to be. He remains in deep peril.
The big takeout for me was he is determined not to quit so if the party want him out anytime soon they'll have to trigger a contest.
🧵THREAD
Birmingham extremist group Deen1fied is branching out, and Leicester is first up. These people do not care about Britain’s interests — only the Ummah.
They created the “Judenfrei” zone for the Villa vs Maccabi game. 1/
https://x.com/sirwg202110/status/2053755510931783700?s=46
https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/2052677008220471583?s=20
Oh, and they nearly passed a bill to kill the old and sick.
“Now is the time for the prime minister to set a clear timetable for his departure,” a Labour MP said while Sir Keir Starmer was taking questions at his press conference this morning.
David Smith, MP for Northumberland, who was appointed as special envoy for freedom of religion or belief by the prime minister in 2024, said: “This departure should be ordered and dignified; for the PM himself, for the government but most of all for the sake of the country.”
He added: “There is no question that the Labour Party owes a debt of gratitude to Keir Starmer for the work he did to turn our party around and to make us an electoral force again.”
* From The Times live feed