You learn to be tough as an NHS doctor. But starting my shift a few days ago, even I was shocked. I spotted a patient, clearly someone with severe mental health issues, stuck on the ward without proper care. I …
Is Trump a blessing for Starmer?
The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump’s election victory is a nightmare for Keir Starmer. Trump not only embodies much that Starmer holds in obvious contempt, but his very presence in the White House captures much of Britain’s essential weakness …
Labour’s blueprint for decline
If Britain’s cultural production leads the world in anything, it is in the imagining of grim dystopias which are only elaborated versions of contemporary British life: the line from 1984 to Children of Men is drawn through a particular, grudgingly …
Trump senses British weakness
It must be all-so familiar to Theresa May. There she was in 2017, holding hands with The Donald, walking in the White House as the first foreign leader invited to see the new Caesar after his inauguration. Poised to assume …
Blair was right about ID cards
Why won’t Keir Starmer support digital ID? When they caught wind of the electoral landslide, Blair and Blunkett lurched from their caskets to demand a return of this, New Labour’s most divisive and, eventually, most thoroughly defeated policy. But Labour …
Keir Starmer is haunted by England
How do you know you’re in a ghost story? It isn’t always obvious. The ghost, after all, usually doesn’t appear until the very end. But there are signs. Perhaps it’s the time of year, or the Ulster rain pawing at …
Starmer can’t keep Britain afloat
It’s hard to know what is more emblematic of Britain’s economic predicament today: the Government pleading for investment from the owners of a ferry company that sacked all its workers; Robert Jenrick cutting a Union Jack cake to celebrate Margaret …
Keir Starmer’s insulting hypocrisy
Keir Starmer’s premiership is well and truly goosed. One policy misstep after another, punctuated by tone-deaf doom-mongering and a freebies scandal that refuses to go away, have exposed Labour as a thoroughly undercooked governmental prospect. Some wrongly chalk this up …
What Labour could learn from Japan
The new Labour government appears to be as relaxed about developing a “nanny state” reputation as it is about being seen as a purveyor of economic doom and gloom. From October next year, television adverts for junk food will not …
Who killed Sue Gray?
And so, the power struggle is over: Sue Gray has lost and Morgan McSweeney has won. Keir Starmer did what he had to — but now there can be no more excuses.
The Prime Minister’s decision to replace Gray so …
The Tory contender Labour fears
It’s not easy judging a prospective leader. In 1955, Anthony Eden was the most impressive prime minister-in-waiting that Britain had ever seen. Put to the test in the greatest conflagration in world history, Eden had emerged with his reputation not …
Keir Starmer: a technocrat without a plan
Two episodes crystallised my opinion of Starmer. First, his dithering over school closures during the early months of the pandemic. Sir Keir changed his mind on the matter no less than six times. Boris, with some justice, was able to …
Labour needs to kill Britishcore
Greggs sausage rolls, XL bullies, “cheeky” Tesco runs and a holibob to Magaluf: welcome to Keir Starmer’s miserable meal-deal Britain. This summer’s collective swoon over “Britishcore” — a wry celebration of the groaningly mundane aspects of British culture, which reached …
The uncomfortable truth about ‘freebie-gate’
If politics is showbusiness for the ugly, then party conference season is their Oscars. It was tempting to stand on the side-lines of the carpeted entrance of Liverpool’s convention centre and shout “Who are you wearing?” as successive cabinet ministers …
Starmer’s relaunch was cursed
It is a rare curse for a government to be forced to relaunch so soon after entering power. Yet with the Labour Party and its leader currently exploring new depths of unpopularity, the explicit aim of Starmer’s speech to conference …