This was posted on X by Steven Swinford of The Times on Friday night:
The comment noted, and the proposed speech by Keir Starmer, are revealing, not because of what they say about Reform or the Greens, but because of what they say about the state of British political argument. When governments run out of economic ideas, as Labour so very obviously has, they resort to fear as the only tool left.
That is obvious here. Starmer is trying to tell us that voting the wrong way risks war, that dissent is weakness, and that lamps will go out across Europe again. That is supposedly serious language, but it is far from being a serious analysis.
To claim that parties are “soft on Russia” or “weak on Nato” is a charge that demands evidence. None is offered. Instead, we get Edward Grey's line from 1914, which was spoken on the eve of a catastrophe brought about not by democratic debate but by elite failure. Invoking that moment today is not about recalling history; it is only about political theatre.
Doing so, it distracts from the real question, which is what security actually means in modern Britain, most especially when NATO is actually failing, as is clear from US actions and the speech Marcus Rubio gave as US Secretary of State for Defence at the same conference as that at which Starmer was speaking, in which he rejected everything that has defined the Western consensus and US foreign policy since 1945.
What Starmer is ignoring is that security is not only military capacity. It is about much more than that.
A country with broken housing markets, underfunded health services, insecure energy supply, stagnant wages and rising inequality is not secure.
An economy dependent on a fragile finance sector and short-term speculation is not secure.
Both of these are political choices, and they are choices Labour could address if it wished to talk about investment, taxation, industrial policy, banking reform and social security. Instead, we are offered warnings about extremists.
The problem is, and this is the other aspect of defence that Starmer ignored, that security is also about working with allies you agree with, and either Starmer is saying his government is now aligned with Trump's fascism when making his comments, or he is lying.
Starmer is, then, ignoring real issues about which he is accountable. Instead, he is resorting to the trick of calling opponents dangerous while invoking national peril and demanding unity behind policies that are not clearly explained. This is absurd given that there are genuine geopolitical threats in the world, and he is unwilling to address them.
If higher defence spending is needed, it is his responsibility to explain why.
If he thinks NATO can still work when the USA is setting itself up as an enemy of Europe, he has to say how that might work.
And if economic change is required to reallocate resources to a defence strategy, he has to explain what change is involved and how it might happen. Consent around security is, after all, built on clarity, and not fear, but Starmer does not seem to appreciate that.
Britain does need strategic renewal and must be secure, but renewal comes from rebuilding the real foundations of security. They are decent housing, health, education, energy resilience and a functioning economy that serves people rather than slogans.
Starmer is justified in pointing out that Reform has no interest in any of those things, but that is not true of the Greens in any way. Lighting lamps today, as far as they are concerned, seems to mean investing in people and institutions at home. That is how a country becomes strong, and that is the conversation we should be having, because that is the foundation of the security we need. When, then, will Starmer talk about that and stop the nonsense?
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We should replace the military industrial complex with a people’s army relying on assymetric warfare techniques.
It would be much cheaper than NATO membership and also far more effective in respect of defence from invasion.
NATO is only needed for aggressive imperialism.
And in respect of Starmer’s statement in general, at least he now has some actual policy and admits the existence of the left right political spectrum.
My thoughts exactly in my response to your first post – Europe and the UK needs to think more about investing in saving democracy and peace as well the military.
Starmer also seems to be saying there is a choice between the two – military might at the expense of poor domestic conditions – this poxy government /civil service thinking addicted to austerity whilst a line of credit to the rich who fund those who will turn out the lights called the Central Bank Reserve Account is filled the rafters with cash plus interest.
Starmer – what a vacuous fuck he is. And the worst of it? The huge profits the the military supply chain will make as too many of our children go hungry and we die in hospital corridors. Starmer is still going to make sure that capital makes some money out of it somewhere in the name of growth – but not us. Our national security a profit centre; our domestic security more and more undermined.
Tell me? What sort of result is that?
Pilgrim Slight Return
I have long appreciated your comments on this blog; they have contributed immensely to the value of this site. But recently you’ve been resorting more to profanities and personal attacks on actual people eg. Vacuous Fuck, b(wanksters). It does you and the blog a great disservice. I do hear your anger but you don’t need to make such attacks to get your point across, you articulate them very well anyway. Reading these words out of context, the blog comes across like any other online forum – casualisation of use of expletives, resorting to hate, playing the man and not the ball, reasons why I read this blog and stay away from others. Just my opinion. In peace.
My preferred way to express frustration or anger is either to refer readers to Rogers Profanisaurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus
Or something like my opinion of X is best expressed using words learnt while serving as a stoker in the Merchant Navy – and yes I really have been one albeit very briefly
EG
I have had words with the help desk, mostly ones I learnt while serving as a stoker in the Merchant Navy
If I were to express my opinion on the subject it would probably crash the profanity filter
🙂
I have little problem with the way PSR expresses himself. It is not as if every other word is an F-word, we are all adults. As for attacking the man, in this case Starmer, the problem is him, a man with no politics, vaccuous in the extreme and a congential liar to boot (e.g. saying anything to become leader & then dumping the lot). He was put there by McSweeney, a conservative Irishman and committed zionist (ditto Starmer).
I am amazed that comments on Starmer are so very – polite. In days of yore the London mob would have done its work and we would be rid of both ghastly men. That from time to time expletives are used in reference to them is, for me, not a problem at all. Oh btw: fart-rage in reference to Farage? is that OK?
@Mike Parr – 3.57pm
Hear, Hear. I agree with every word of your assessment of Starmer and McSweeney and it does my heart good to hear someone say it. If only it was said more often by more people.
Starmer cannot act in this country’s best interest, he is committed to fascist America and zionist Isreal. Every moment he continues as UK PM puts the UK at greater risk.
The UK needs to cut ties with the US/Israel and strengthen ties with the EU and Canada.
Starmer is scared, rightly, of Greens and Reform. Now McSweeney and Mandelson are gone he is clueless about policy and resorted to militaristic jingoism a la WW1 to save his skin and cheap smear tactics.
I was thinking that perhaps that was the last speech McSweeney wrote for him.
Starmer is incapable of thinking for himself.
I suspect Starmer is still being programmed by the Blairites. Remember the profundities of New Labour when Tony Blair told us: “This is not a time for soundbites, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder”.
Yes I agree, security is about more than defense.
The vehicle that got Starmer (the liar) to head LINO was “Labour Together”. It had a donation of £750k – which was not explained. It was fined by the electoral commission, it funded a report and smear campaign against journalists (who were trying to find out where LT got its funding). They accused the journos of……working for Russia. More details here:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/e5efccd6-cc25-4e86-8900-f33c304f7188?shareToken=4b9bb56884515ab4506e000457ed883c
(note also McSweeney was involved).
It would seem that any qustioning of Starmer-the-liar leads to an accusation of being a Russia asset. Hopefully May will see the departure of this truly pathetic man – hopefully for the Hague and trial for assisting genocide.
I imagine that no steer is looking to the man who has such a special relationship with Trump and other world “strong” men. Why of course T.B. T.B. and his foundation will be there helping and taking care of no steer.
The Green Party recognises that NATO has an important role in ensuring the ability of its member states to respond to threats to their security. We would work within NATO to achieve:
From their website
Thanks
Starmer (and his replacement) will rely increasingly on “secret squirrel” arguments.
It was the reasoning that Yvette Cooper used when proscribing Palestine Action. “If you knew what we knew… (but we can’t tell you what we know, you have to trust us).”
It is the argument they use within the Labour Party to put down their opponents, and move the entire party to the right.
It is the argument they use against we citizens, to demand our obedience – we cannot be told the secret sauce, we must trust the authorities, who know so much more than we do, and we must accept that the authorities know best.
It is the argument used this week in the Jewish Chronicle, that dissent and activist protest is damaging the very economy of the country and must be suppresed, for all our sakes (when in fact, it is harming those whose business is to trade in genocide).
https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/exclusive-violent-gaza-activism-damaging-british-economy-say-investors-dia6mhth
It is dangerous, autocratic, authoritarian, anti-democratic rubbish. Thank-you for calling it out.
Coopper was arguing violence was terrorism on Laura Kuennsberg this morning.
I hereby: (1) declare an interest, in so far as I am a Green Party member and activist; and (2) thank Sir Keir Starmer for continuing to assist our campaign in Gorton and Denton.
🙂
Risk war? Don’t we have war already between Ukraine, seemingly never-ending, the threat to Iran by the US, whether it’s seen through or not? Israel committing genocide in plain view? I know that’s barely scratching the surface of what’s occurring worldwide. But is this really the water-tight argument he’s going with?
Only too true Richard – militarism, a bit like patriotism ‘being the last refuge of the scoundrel’ . How can our politics have sunk so low – that our ‘leader’ thinks this means anything. As Orwell put it , wars are not there to be won – but just to be there – to keep us in line.
Even military hawks think that our ‘defence’ spending has been like throwing money down a black hole (renewing useless treaty-breaking nukes, aircraft carriers with no planes and no protective frigates and subs, armoured carriers that don’t work etc) . And the recent ‘Strategic Defence Review’ by cold war George Robertson said this has to change and yet proposed more of the same – much to the benefit of shares in Rolls Royce, BAE systems, Babcock etc
Starmer’s speech seems to be part of the establishment ‘extremism’ push back against Zolanski – along with the Daily Mail doing the ‘antisemitic extremism’ trope.
And the BBC parroting ‘welfare reform’ (slashing public services , support for low income households etc.) being essential so we can produce more bombs.
Starmer finds it much easier strutting about the world stage among the coalition of the willing – than anything to do with making us secure through
‘decent housing, health, education, energy resilience and a functioning economy that serves people rather than slogans.’
Despair