Keir Starmer is demanding that migrants to the UK be fluent in English, but there is no evidence that he is. Shouldn't he, too, have to pass a test in English competence?
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This is the transcript:
Keir Starmer has suggested that migrants to the UK should have to pass enhanced English language tests. Well, I have a very simple and very straightforward proposition to put to Keir Starmer and, that is, he should pass an English language test.
I'm utterly bored by UK politicians, and he is a perfect example of the breed, failing to speak in joined-up English.
They talk utter gibberish.
They don't answer questions.
They can't use joined-up sentences.
There is no purpose to what they have to say.
To use a common phrase, it feels like word salad.
And, as a consequence, none of us have any idea whatsoever what politicians really mean.
They use cliches all the time. One of those that I hate most of all is "I don't answer hypothetical questions".
They use this in response to a question from a journalist, which is about something that might take place in the future, and say they can't possibly answer that.
The whole of politics is about what might happen in the future.
Everything in politics is about choosing between alternative hypotheses, which underpin the policy decisions that politicians have to make about what they might do in the future. And yet, all the time we're told that politicians can't answer hypothetical questions. That is utter and complete nonsense. It's not just a lie. It's deliberate misinformation, which in many ways is, as far as I'm concerned, worse.
One of the other phrases they keep on using is, "you would not expect me to answer that". Well, yes, actually, we would. That's why the journalist put the question to you. They asked you a question because they wanted an answer to it, because people in this country do want to know the answer to the question which the journalist has presented.
But the politician then says, "You wouldn't possibly expect me to answer that". I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable.
If people who come to this country are expected to be able to provide nuanced answers to nuanced questions, then at the least, I think we should expect is that our politicians should be able to do the same.
And we should also expect them to get over the use of three-word phrases.
There are hordes of these that I hate. Keir Starmer's latest favourite is, "I get it".
What is it that you get, Keir Starmer?.
You don't explain what 'getting it' means, and, actually, I'm left totally confused by your claim because all you are really saying is that you're going to do something: we don't know what, we don't know when, we don't know why. You just 'get it', and I don't think you do, because if you did, you wouldn't use that phrase.
Just as you wouldn't use the phrase "taking back control". Not only wouldn't you use it because others have done so for particularly unsavoury purposes, but you wouldn't use it because that's not what you are going to do because you're Prime Minister. You already have control, or as much control as anybody's ever going to get over a subject. So, to claim that you are going to take back control does, in the context in which you use the phrase, make absolutely no sense at all.
Just the same as saying that you're going to smash gangs makes no sense because, as a matter of fact, crime will always be with us. So to claim that you are going smash gangs, whether that be to do with drugs, whether that be to do with migration, whether that be to do with anything else, is completely stupid, because you guarantee to set yourself up to fail. Why do you want to use language in a way that guarantees that you will fail? I don't know.
And yet we see this, time and again.
We hear the claim that a government is going to deliver growth.
What growth?.
Growth in what? Why?
Not all growth is good, Keir Starmer. Let me explain one sort that isn't. The cancerous growth of cells in the human body is decidedly detrimental to well-being. So your naive suggestion that all you are about is creating growth is just plain stupid, is the only word I can come up with, because without qualification, it means nothing.
Growth in the size of the economy, so that we're destroying the planet? Why would you want to do that?
Growth in the size of the economy so that you increase inequality? Is that good?
Growth in the size of the economy so that you will, as a consequence, suppress the wages of the people who are working in this country, whilst inflating profits? Is that what you want?
Without the qualification of the term growth, even in the economic context, that claim that you are aiming to deliver growth is completely meaningless.
So, please, can we have some sense?
Actually, speak in plain English.
Use sentences that are unambiguous as to their meaning.
And, honestly answer questions, while setting out precisely what you are going to do.
That is the least that you owe to us as people in this country.
That is what we expect of you.
And unless you can do that, you are going to reveal something to us about which we have very good reason to worry. Not only should you be able to do all these things to persuade us to put you into power, but if you can't do these things when you are in power, why should we believe that you are able to direct those who work for you?
The number of people in government in the UK is tiny. Around 120 ministers run the whole of the UK government, and that includes all the very low-level ones as well. The number of people in the civil service runs to something like half a million. If you, as a politician, cannot tell those civil servants precisely what you want them to do, when, how, and why, there is no chance that they will deliver.
If you can't tell us what that is, how can we believe that you are able to do that? You are failing the most basic English language test.
You are failing the test of competence that we would expect of any reasonable manager in this country.
You are failing on the test of the ability to communicate.
Drop the cliches.
Drop the ambiguities.
Drop the avoiding the question.
Drop all this stupid nonsense about "you wouldn't expect me to answer that".
Just tell us what you're doing, why you're doing it, when you're doing it, what the benefit will be, and how we will realise that that benefit has arisen for us and then we might believe you, but right now we've got no reason to do so.
And until you can do these things, stop demanding that others pass ridiculous tests in the English language, which you are clearly unable to have any hope of passing.
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Saddened to read of the passing of a notable politician yesterday
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/13/jose-mujica-uruguay-dead
“Life is a beautiful adventure and a miracle,” he said. “We are too focused on wealth and not on happiness. We are focused only on doing things and – before you know it – life has passed you by.”
A man who showed what you could do to radically transform a country in five years for the betterment of everyone and he didn’t want the pomp and grandeur that came with the position. If only Labour understood that they can be bold and move forward instead of pointing fingers at the past and saying “our hands are tied”
Thanks
Thanks for sharing that news and link, as I would have missed it, and he was too good a person not to be reminded about “Pepe”.
Thank you.
And one of the generation of Latin American leaders that inspired the likes of Claudia Sheinbaum.
Correct. But.
The constitutional system is such that once elected politicos could communicate in the Khoisan click language and there is little we can do about it. The poor/non-communication is intentional – after all – what can we, UK serfs do about it? Nothing.
Obvs, there needs to be a balance between a bunch of politicos “getting on with the job” (and perhaps communicating poorly) and a bunch of cack-handed-out-of-control-cowboys with the communication skills of a mollusc. In the case of the latter, they need to be held to account & turfed out quickly if they cannot deliver what the country needs. Sadly, the grunts & gibberings that constitute LINO comms will be with us for another 4 years.
Starmer: as a barrister he is supposed to be both a quick thinker and adept with words. Begging the question: his public performances show that he is not – & thus fall into the class of obfucation rather than informing UK serfs what is going on & why.
And let’s not even get started on Donald Trump . . .
I heard this this weekend – so Trump is talking to Mr X (can’t remember who) and Mr X says to Trump, ‘I understand that you are going to put 2 men on the Moon’ – ‘no’ says Trump, ‘I’m going to put 2 men on the sun’ – Mr X shows surprise and says ‘but surely, they will be burnt before they even get there’ – Trump replies ‘no, I’m going to do it at night’. I believe that this sums up politicians (read President) ‘adequately’.
🙂
Starmer should have to pass a test in Welsh.
He’s failing every test. Primarily, having a single clue what he’s doing.
I have often believed that modern politicians project their own inadequacies onto the societies they proclaim to managing.
I note also the loss of civil servants in London and all I can think of is that this is being done simply to handover yet more space in London to Britain’s rapacious private property sector – it has nothing to do with ‘devolution’.
Thank you. PSR.
You are correct about the decentralisation as a cover. The reform of farm inheritance tax could be construed similarly. The initiatives have the same author, BlackRock.
You make mention of about 120 “Ministers” in the Gov’t.
My understanding, based on current Westminster grumbling, is that there is only ONE Minister, the PM (as managed by McTeam et al), and that other so-called Ministers are given NO autonomy with regard to policy initiatives.
They all apparently have to either say or do only and exactly what Downing St. tell them.
This may be why they are so often seen and heard talking such gibberish. If they utter a single coherent original sentence that deviates from the McTeam script for their department, it might get them into trouble with McTeam. So they just woffle. As long as it’s meaningless gibberish, they are safe.
It also explains the dearth of useful government initiatives to solve urgent problems that aren’t on McTeam’s list (which has 2 items only – growth rhetoric & immigration rhetoric).
🙂
Labour Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, did get on and do the job as she saw it, ‘to move fast and fix things’. Like several other newly admInisters she was equipped to do this, having held the Shadow brief for a good time. Her approach and informed understanding galvanised her Civil Servants but proved too much for Downing Street.
Might it help Sir Starmer, and fellow vacuous speakers, if the Speaker of the House of Commons ran the place so that questions were answered, information shared, purposeful discussion required and point scoring and showing off reduced to a minimum?
It would
Thank you and well said, Richard.
A dozen or so years ago, Blair was invited to make opening remarks at Cape Town’s annual mining “indaba” (a Zulu word used to describe a conference).
He spouted word salad and talked about religion and its influence on geopolitics. The audience were stunned, expecting some insight, not cliches.
Thank you Colonel.
The other wonder must surely be the fact that he charges a fee for the nonsense he regularly spouts.
It beats me how he gets away with it.
Thank you, Karl.
Beats me, too.
I live between Chequers and Wotton. Blair got a taste at the former and bought the latter and more.
I am not surprised, miners any where (I worked at Mufulira Mine in Zambia for 18 years) are very safety focused and knowledgeable because if you make a mistake you and or your friends could die. A stupid decision to fill a surface subsidence with tailing to displace the water killed 112 miners when the tailings flooded the mine.
The prime minster’s immigration speech was full of meaningless cliches and platitudes. Common sense. Going further and faster. Taking back control. Closing the book. We will deliver what you have asked for. Privileges that are earned, not rights.
And of course frightening us with inchoate monsters to be slain. A system almost designed to permit abuse. Forces pulling our country apart. An island of strangers.
I’m sure you know as well as I do where all this comes from, Richard. There’s an industry entirely focused on coaching people in how to handle public speaking/PR/political communication – call it what you will.
I remember being roped into such an event way back in 1990, when I had a potentially ‘political’ job working in Greater Manchester. That was the early days of this stuff (most people might be familiar with this in relation to Thatcher and how the tone of her voice and style of speaking changed after 1979). As well as avoiding saying ‘er’ and ‘uhm’ and being hesitant, the focus was on turning difficult questions around; answering a question with a question; deflection; and being able to change tone from friendly and accommodating to mock anger and controlled aggression if you wanted to make the questioner back off, or look a bit like ‘who the fuck do you think you are to be asking ME that.’
Also important was knowing the correct words to use – words that implied action, ‘doing’ words, but also all the in vogue phraseology, which at the time was about ‘networking’, and ‘economy, efficiency and effectiveness’ (the 3 E’s as they were known) or any phrase that related to it like, ‘doing more for less’, ‘internal competition’, ‘marketisation’, ‘decentralisation’, and so it went on.
Of course, nowadays the PR/political communication/image management industry has entirely taken over the political and managerial landscape of pretty much every country on earth. I’ll bet there isn’t a politician – even at local level – that hasn’t been sent on whatever they call this type of training now. Ditto any manager in any company above medium size.
The whole industry now perpetuates exactly the things you rail against in this blog, and particularly the invention and use of inane words and phrases (my person hate is still ‘going forward’ – for Gods sake, what was wrong with ‘in the future’). Private Eye has a regular column devoted to covering Parliamentary hearing at which ‘word salad’ and expression and terminology that no normal human understands routinely spout forth from the mouths of senior civil servants and government ministers. But then, when the government has paid many millions of £ to commercial companies to be taught this stuff (and look at any report by a consultancy and it’ll be full of this guff) you may as well use it.
So, until we do something about this side of politics don’t expect any changes. Then again, perhaps when we get PR we can have a great ‘reset’ (to use a popular current term) as part of which we can ban not only all types of lobbying and political donations over a certain amount (and only from people registered to vote in the UK), but also all forms of political communication/PR. Trouble is, what would all those ex-politicos and government employees do once they’re out of office, poor things (suggestion – work in the third sector or some other form of public service).
I agree, Ivan.
I know where this comes from.
I am sure I could do it.
But I am saying they need to stop it.
Two particularly egregious examples of this by Israeli spokespeople on Radio 4 news.
Yesterday on the World at One, Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s counter terrorism spokesman, and this morning, and on the Today Programme this morning David Mencer, a former director of Labour Friends of Israel, and current Israeli government representative.
Both were openly aggressive and hostile, refusing to answer questions, and accusing the BBC of bias. I am not easily shocked by politicians weasel words and refusal to debate, but these two “interviews” were at a different level altogether. I question whether the BBC should accept such openly hostile attacks on air.
I remember seeing Gorka for the first time when Trump was in office the first time, Helen. If I recall correctly, at that time he wore a badge of some kind that linked him to the ‘Hungarian Guard’ – the military wing of a far right party – which also had anti-semetic tendencies. I saw him being interviewed by C4 News and he was exactly the same as you document today: all aggression, hostility and ‘look how macho I am so don’t challenge me’ shite. But it’s interesting he was on with an Israeli given his past. Then again, you have to be able to sell out every belief and ounce of ethical and moral fiber if you want to work for Trump.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-aide-gorka-backed-hungarian-anti-semitic-militia/
Helen, I heard the first of the interviews you mentioned. I was discussing it with a friend this morning …. His suggestion was interesting: Given how people avoid answering the question, misrepresent, mislead or deliberately lie, what is the point of ‘live’ interviews? The spokespeople want the platform – so it shouldn’t be offered to folk like Gorka to blatantly abuse – querying why he should answer questions in an interview? Duh? Why was he allowed to continue?
So: Instead of live interviews — allow spokespeople to be interviewed, in the knowledge that their statements will be verified. If it is not possible to verify, the can be given the opportunity to provide supporting evidence. Otherwise, statements can be made, stating clearly that the spokesperson was unable to support the points that they wanted to broadcast.
Also, as previously stated here, all spokespeople must identify their organisation (e.g. google) and/or sources of funding (if the body is supported by others).
I’m sure that the above could be improved – but we need to understand that these spokespeople WANT a national platform that has some credibility — they should be made to earn it.
I suppose it was ‘the best form of defence is attack’. But its not working – I think polls show a big majority against what’s happening in Gaza .
But the BBC’s editorial approach is hopelessly inadequate to deal with Israeli spokespersons’ direct challenge . BBC are still steeped in achieving ‘balance’ – often between opposing views – or opinions- whatever relationship they have to the truth .
They have no overriding journalistic mission to get to the truth, no investigative curiosity. BBC interviewer , didn’t dare even ask Lammy – who lied about stopping arms to Israel and then said he couldn’t do anything about potential genocide – it was for a court to decide.
It took a few more days and an international lawyer to say ‘no – it was for governments to stop it – ‘if you saw a man hitting his wife over the head with a rolling pin – you wouldnt say I must get a judge to look at that – you would try to stop it happening’.
And of course, we get so used to this word salad obfuscation from politicians that as soon as someone like Trump or Farage comes along, we mistake their snake oil salesman routine for ‘telling it like it is’.
The political class suffers the same issue as the business world, they are just a homogenised group taught the same way, in the same institutions, with the same ideology. Don’t expect innovation from them. Like the average CEO, their best days are behind them. They have just learned to wield power and influence amongst their own group to climb to the top. They are there to manage the status quo and change nothing.
Thank you, Helen.
In the early noughties, Blair counselled the Israeli government to up its PR game and hire people who look and sound like us. The result is the likes of Britons Mencer and Colonel Peter Allen, Aussie Mark Regev (childhood friend of the Jonathan Freedland) and the French man and woman IOF officers.
Gorka is an interesting character. He hails from a family whose last stand was alongside the defenders in Berlin in April 1945.
Excellent! I have had similar thoughts myself about Starmer. He ( and Rachel Reeves) speak in a staccato style, often leaving out verbs altogether. His performances at Prime Minister’s questions is particularly egregious. He does not seem to be able to listen and formulate a response, odd for an experienced barrister, but relies on some pre-written formula from his folder, whether it has any relationship to the question or not. It is an insult to Parliament, to his fellow MPs, and to Democratic accountability.
My pet hate in interviews is “We’ve been clear that…” and all its variants. It always strikes me as subtly aggressive, implying that we (via the interviewer) are being deliberately bone-headed and obtuse.
I rarely listen to their pre-scripted utterances any more, it’s just the verbal equivalent of ultra-processed food – empty of substance or authentic content.
Agreed
I forgot that one.
Today’s THE LEFT LANE suggests left-wing Labour MPs like Zarah Sultana should leave Labour over the immigration issue:
https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/zarah-the-working-class-needs-leaders
I don’t know whether Zarah Sultana should resign from the Labour Party, but I do know she is an admirable, principled , brave human being who, in a decent world , would have been a minister in a progressive government. Her campaign against military sales to Israel, which has got under the skin of Starmer and Lammy, is difficult to keep on pressing as it alienates her from colleagues too scared to confront the immorality of Labour’s leadership, but she has doubled down under criticism and continued the fight, as she showed in a feisty appearance on Newsnight this week. Coventry South is lucky to have such an excellent politician as their MP.
Another candidate for most annoying response must surely be ” I’m not going to give a running commentary ” when questioned about anything that is actually occurring.