The New Statesman had a fascinating article on Keir Starmer this week. The key paragraph, as far as I was concerned, was this:
Politics is not a consuming passion. He has no political hero. It is clear he still finds Westminster mildly distasteful. He doesn't stop on the stairs of No 10 to look at any of his predecessors pictured descending from the first-floor landing. “With Gordon Brown the thing he cares about is politics above all else,” one aide explains, suggesting that politics is not the key to unlocking Starmer. “Gordon will ask about your family, but his brain wants to get on to politics. Keir is the opposite. If you're stuck in a lift with him, you're talking about your family.”
The overarching theme of the whole article was, in fact, that Keir Starmer really does not know why he is Prime Minister, or what motivates him, or what he wants to achieve. He is just where he is, doing what he thought he might do next to make his CV look good, and finding, to his apparent surprise, that for the first time in his life, he is both out of his depth and that his efforts are neither good enough nor appreciated.
The real question is, how did we end up with a man so unsure of himself, so bland, and so lacking in conviction as the prime minister of this country?
Most particularly, how can someone who does not have a passion for politics above all else end up in that position?
Like it or not, I appreciate that after a week away, when I spent a lot of time thinking about politics and how I might best communicate my ideas around the subject, I am possessed of that passion, and yet Keir Starmer is not.
I do not find my own passion troubling. It is who I am.
That said, in the same way, it is apparent that Keir Starmer is not a person meant to be prime minister. He has not got the passion, conviction or understanding that the post demands. We are paying a high price for that.
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Which begs the question – who is he a front for and what made him be that front person?
The article seems a bit iffy to me, claiming something which doesn’t match the available facts. If Starmer didn’t have the ambition to climb the greasy pole of politics, how did he go from a faithful member of Corbyn’s cabinet to one of those stabbing him in the back and now ultimately leading a government which takes a stance which couldn’t be further from that of Corbyn, policy-wise? You can’t just fall into the role of Prime Minister (OK, May, Truss and Sunak aside!).
If anything, I’d say he is more like Cameron than anything. They both worked their way up the ladder to become PM, but not because they had any sort of a vision of what they wanted to achieve for the country, more because they thought they ‘would be rather good at it’.
I don’t doubt that there are people in the background steering Starmer’s course for him (as there will always be in political parties), but I don’t think he’s exactly ‘innocent’ in political terms.
The problem is that his LINO backers are absolutely useless in both policy and political nouse and they’ve selected a Chancellor who is similarly useless in every regard.
He was interviewed many times for the article. The journalist in question also has a lot of experience. I do not think it iffy.
Perhaps Starmer is one of those dangerous people who just wants to win, simply for the sake of winning? He was apparently quite happy to dissemble in order to get elected. There seem to be a lot of such people in politics these days — Brexit was pushed through by a bunch who wanted to win, despite knowing that it would be bad for Britain.
It’s hard to know how to deal with such individuals, because the more you try to explain how they are wrong, the more they will feel cornered and the harder they will fight for their win. The only real hope is to get to them before they have decided their position, and persuade them that doing the right thing is the easier win. Given the people that Starmer has surrounded himself with, I think it’s not a feasible option in this case. I conclude that he must be deposed if we are going to get better policy from this Government.
Good question. I think the answer to that would be that as a blank piece of paper his ‘controllers/sponsors/paymasters’ can dictate onto it anything they want. But – and this is important – as a ex senior public servant (with the added advantage of the ‘Sir’ title) many members of the public (who, let’s be honest, have a limited knowledge of politics) would assume he had the knowledge and experience to do the job of PM pretty well.
Of course, that’s an entirely misplaced belief, as Richard points out here, because to be an effective politician you actually have to be political – in the broadest sense of the term. And, as importantly, you have to believe that politics and political action can make a difference. And again, as importantly – that politics (by which I also mean political economy) impacts us all, despite the fact that lots of people like to claim otherwise. And finally, you have to have some form of ideology, whether that’s strong or weak, because that relates to your values and beliefs – a fact well illustrated on a daily basis by the those who comment on Richard’s blogs (including Richard, obviously).
Unfortunately for the citizenry of this country – and our democracy – we’ve consistently seen those who rise to the level of MPs becoming what we might best term “politics lite” or even – as in the case of Starmer (another would be Richard Tice) politics free. Being an MP is now just another job, the only important issue being which organisation (party) you go to work for, as this may well dictate how successful your “career” in politics is, and thus – most importantly – the “quality” (i.e. amount of money) of the jobs you get offered once your time as an MP comes to an end. In short, many MPs are simply place holders, or, if I wanted to be crueler but perhaps more accurate, political grifters.
To return to the original question. It’s not just Starmer whose a front person, and it’s not just him whose been put there. The Labour, Tory and Lib Dem parties have all become mechanisms for ensuring that those who get put forward to become MPs are the “right” – politics free/lite, political grifter, kind of person. That way, controlling them – and thus our parliament, government and consequently, our democracy – is a piece of (hegemonic) cake.
Thanks
Starmer is a ‘placeman’ – appointed by others who are not accountable to you, only to themselves. That is – maybe – the traditional view.
And let us not forget that this is the age of the Avatar – a simulated being that exists in computer gaming that you can inhabit to do things you would not be able to do in real life in a pretend world.
Too many of our politicians are human avatars (flesh and bone) these days – empty vessels with back seat drivers of the capital class at the controls, the media their screen to see it all. The world the real human avatar inhabits though is fake world they and we live in and is called a ‘democracy’. It is world where they can steal from you in broad daylight by just moving money around and making sure they get their hands on it, leaving you with very little, if not nothing. A world were a vote means nothing because the avatars are really all the same but have different logos, which is nice.
In fact, maybe that is what a democracy is these days – a system of theft, from one layer of society to another?
The system does not kill you – that is far too honest and easily attracts attention to it.
No, this system can make you not want to live. That is the subtle knife that is Neo-liberalism.
Given current events, given his family is zionist, given the support previous govs & the current gov has given to Israel & its apartheid regime then, whilst Starmer appears bland & perhaps a-political, he has through personal views and gov action/inaction put UK citizens in harms way:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/14/israel-and-iran-exchange-missile-strikes-with-explosions-heard-in-tel-aviv-jerusalem-and-tehran-live
Headline: “Iran warns strikes will target US, UK and France bases in region if they prevent attacks on Israel” perhaps it will be limited to UK military bases – or perhaps not.
Remind me what the UK has in common with Israel & why the Uk should be providing military support including training Israeli troops? Why? What possible benefit? No answers will ever be coming from Mr Bland.
Starmer himself has said that he was born a zionist and will die a zionist.
Perhaps those that tell him what to do needed a zionist in that position. They also needed someone who can find his way around the law.
My MP, Luke Akehurst, wears teeshirts calling himself a zionist shitlord. He has been called the best person to have in his position to help Netanyahu. He is not Jewish, but has been in charge of organising infiltration of the labour party for decades.
He was director of We Believe in Israel and secretary of Labour First right up until his first day as MP. Before that he worked for Weber Shandwick.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/luke-akehurst-arch-israel-lobbyist-picked-for-labour-safe-seat/
“My MP, Luke Akehurst”……is not & cannot be British if he is a zionist. This carries with it a commitment to the policies of a foreign power (Israel) which in the medium to long term are likely to prove inimicable to the interests & well being of UK citizens and the UK state. The UK state has no “interest” in Israel in the sense that Israel is important to the well being of Uk citizens or the useful functioning of the UK state.
Given this, it would seem that at the VERY least, Akehurst is unfit to hold any sort of elective office or even a post in the Uk civil service – because of split loyalties. At the very most? A traitor to the interest of the UK state since his support for Israel an ipso facto apartheid state and probably genocidal state exposes the UK to actions by third parties unhappy with Israel and its supporters in other countries. Furthermore, his support of Israel through thick and thin within the UK gov, exposes the UK gov & the UK state to compliticity with genocide. One wonders about the voters who voted for this person? Do they understand that he does not & cannot have either their best interests or the best interests of the UK state at heart?
I also think the zionist link is part of the answer to the question of how a man like Starmer became prime minister. I’d better say straight away that I don’t believe in any kind of secret international jewish conspiracy – that is obviously ridiculous racist nonsense – but I do think there’s a lot of evidence that the governments of Israel and the US have extremely well-organised, well-funded, amoral and manipulative lobbying operations that can reach deep into other countries’ political parties, media, etc…
I agree with Richard that the overall impression is of a man who is a bit lost. But the most telling part of the interview was Starver’s evasion of two questions about Gaza, Surely the most important issue he faces as Prime Minister of Israel’s staunch ally.
Who chose him when he was supposed to be a human rights lawyer, and he certainly does not care about human rights any more?
He likes to give the impression that what he says must be right because he was a human rights lawyer. Maybe he needs to do more research on human rights and what they mean to all people.
https://politicalcleanup.wordpress.com/tag/luke-akehurst/
I somehow find it difficult to think this is the first time he’s been out of his depth. looking at the public posts he’s held they have not shown brilliance.
To be honest if he was milk monitor in school on expect he had difficulty.
But he also seems completely unaware of his shortcomings. He doesn’t seem to act like someone who realises he’s out of his depth. He seems quite confident in making all the terrible decisions he his making. I don’t even think he believes that he’s doing badly in the opinion polls. He’s not really faced and consequences for his previous failures so doesn’t believe he can fall.
There is an expression in the corporate world “fail up”, it seems an apt description
Things were going smoothly for neoliberalism and the STP (apart from the 2008 global crash, Covid, and the worsening climate emergency) but then something very worrying happened. A very ordinary but worryingly honest man, who was not already bought out by corporate donations, and wasn’t beholden to them, nor would be, whose politics was mainstream social democrat, got elected as Labour leader in 2015.
The Labour Party, previously a tolerable manifestation of the STP, rapidly increased its membership to over 600,000, and their members’ small personal donations put it in a stronger position financially than it had been for years.
Even more worrying, that man, an experienced MP in a safe seat, was not a Zionist nor was he susceptible to being either bribed or intimidated into supporting Zionism.
It was clear that his policies were popular with the public, whereas that same public were tiring of Tory austerity, and LibDem betrayal, and an eventual Labour GE victory was inevitable.
Unless something was done to discredit him, he might become Prime Minister. That could NOT be allowed to happen.
Starmer was groomed to replace him, the smear campaign started, and the Labour Party’s 2017 election campaign was sabotaged from within and without.(Despite the smears, lies and betrayal, to the Labour establishment’s shock, Corbyn came within about 4,000 votes of victory over May in 2017, in key marginal seats), and destroyed her majority.
Many Labour figures, MP’s, Shadow Cabinet colleagues and leading journalists and editors made considerable personal sacrifices to discredit that Labour leader, and keep him from power – (they sacrificed their consciences, their integrity, their credibility, perhaps even their souls).
They were successful. He twice failed to become PM, he was replaced by Starmer, highly INexperienced, his political, moral and personal opposite, and now, here we are, facing economic collapse, climate change, global violence, authoritarianism, censorship, genocide and fascism.
No one is coming to save us. There are no heroes waiting in the wings.
We have to solve this one ourselves, we can, and we will.
We simply identify each lie, each piece of hypocrisy, each dishonest act, each demand for moral hypocrisy, each illegal act, and we say, “NO!”, we resist.
We speak the truth.
We call lies, lies.
We call corruption, corruption.
We insist on the truth, and always call out bull****.
We refuse to choose between the greater or lesser evil, we refuse evil, full stop.
As we undermine Starmer’s neoliberal Labour, we have to be even clearer about fascist Reform UK, and their hypocritical chameleon corporate leadership.
We can link with what my scriptures call “people of peace”, whom we recognise as having good hearts even if we differ on details. There are more of them than perhaps we realise, scales are falling from a lot of eyes, and people are seeing things that they never saw before.
We are the people, and there are an awful lot of us. Tyrannies don’t last for ever. Neoliberal tyranny has lasted about 45 years in the UK (possibly longer) and that’s long enough.
Starmer is a busted flush.
So is Reeves.
So is neoliberal monetarist economics.
So is the political ideology of Zionism that seems to have been used to remove one Labour leader and install another.
To quote the Hebrew scriptures, Dagon has fallen flat on his face (1 Samuel 5), he will keep falling and the idol will eventually shatter. The idol in this case, being the idol that has been made of the political state of Israel.
For anyone interested in understanding how different strands of Judaism, Islam, & Christianity (including the militant perversions of each) understand the concept of jutice, try reading “Reconciling Justice – Concepts of Justice in the Multireligious Context of Palestine/Israel” by Salim J. Munayer, a Palestinian Christian Israeli, and founder of Musalaha (a reconciliation initiative) former dean of Bethlehem Bible College. ISBN 979-8-3852-0800-5, available here from Cascade books, via EmbraceME
https://shop.embraceme.org/products/reconciling-justice
It’s not light reading, I’ve got to p35, and am learning about “halakah”.
This video gives a taste of Salim Munayer as he talks about the book with Bethlehem Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTbkNyalUYs
(over 50mins))
What I appreciated in the video, was Salim’s capacity for self-examination and self-challenge. I hope the book will challenge me too.
That post above from Robert should be RobertJ. My fault, sorry.
What does this tell us about the Labour Party and our political system?
I suggest both are broken.
I look back at the great figures when I was growing up – Healey, Callaghan, Heath, Benn – they disagreed about things profoundly but there was a common belief in why they were there and what they had to do. Later (eg in Benn diaries) it turns out there was a huge amount of common respect, which was not apparent to me at the time, all having had the similar experiences in the 30s and 40s.
I don’t see any of that today.
Agreed
We should not forget Atlee.
I found the article both interesting and illuminating. For me it confirmed the view I hold of Starmer, which is that he is a “small” man, happier dealing with individuals, and details, than with big troublesome issues. He clearly lacks any “vision”, yearning instead, I suspect, to return the UK to a time where things were, as he sees them, more “normal”. The tragedy is that we don’t need a sort of middle manager “chap” who’s reasonably capable with details. We need someone who has a much broader, clearer vision of our ills and their causes, and a convincing vision of the things which need to be done to address those causes and heal us. Sadly, I’m not sure there is anyone in UK politics these days who possesses those capabilities. From a more particular perspective, his evasions on Gaza are unforgivable; clear evidence, in my opinion of an obstinate determination to bury his head in the sand when it comes to the appalling malignancy of the current Israeli leadership.
Starmer does however seem very sure of one thing: his absolute and undying support of Israel no matter what.
Two Times journalists, Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund have written two books, “Left Out” ( 376 pages on how Corbyn’s ousting was orchestrated from the right using anti-Semitism as the key lever) and “Get In” ( 470 pages on how empty political vessel Starmer was ‘groomed’ by Morgan McSweeney – now Starmer’s right hand man- to be Labour leader and PM). Together they answer Richard’s justifiable question.
I read the article on Starmer and liked it in the sense it confirms my initial impression that he’s a good manager type and like all good managers in organisations deserves to do well.
He’s now in the top slot and unfortunately being head of a govt isn’t quite like being the head of a civil service dept. Both roles are political but the former can’t ever succeed as such and therefore is always seen to end in failure.
Starmer probably knows this only too well. So what does he want to achieve?
The only thing I have heard him mention many times is clearing up the mess of the Tories and returning the UK to decent capable govt.
I suspect Starmer and Reeves see this improvement in govt capability and decency being delivered through improving public finances ie some austerity combined with some private finance initiatives that keep the neoliberal order ticking over in what they probably understand only too well is having to be done in difficult circumstances.
I am sure out of power they will be amply rewarded for their efforts.