There has been a lot of debate recently about why so many people “detest” Keir Starmer. Yes, he’s the worst Prime Minister we’ve ever had (and I include Liz Truss in that) but “detest” is a very strong word. Dislike, certainly, and be profoundly disappointed among those deluded enough to have voted for him. But detest? Let me try to explain why. No country in its right mind would give away sovereign territory, namely the Chagos Islands, and then offer billions that we don’t have to lease a bit of it back again.
Public anger at this has been underestimated by Number 10 but people have been shouting “traitor” at Starmer and his cohorts. This is why. Can you imagine Margaret Thatcher doing any such thing? Or any other party leader in their right mind? But say what you like about Maggie, she always, very clearly, put the interests of Britain ahead of anything. The only interests Starmer seems concerned about are those of fat cat lawyers, especially those with enmity of Britain at their heart.
Starmer has allowed his beyond useless Chancellor to attack food safety in this country at a time when the international situation is becoming increasingly febrile through her war on British farmers. The benefits bill is so high it exceeds the amount the government takes in income tax. They have attacked aspiration: rather than encouraging people to make the best of themselves, they want us to be dependent on the state.
This is not fundamentally the way Britons think: Napoleon didn’t call us a nation of shopkeepers for nothing. This is a party that said its priority was growth and then made it far more expensive to hire people. Innumerate as well as stupid and while the actual measures might have been announced by Rachel Reeves, she and Starmer are two sides of the same coin.
We have been made to feel ashamed of our history, rather than celebrating the fact that British culture, to this day, dominates the globe. Well done us! But Starmer, and the likes of David Lammy, think this is bad. He has attacked pensioners, allowed anti-Semitism to run rife, completely and totally failed to address the problem of illegal (and legal) migration, run down the military to an extent that it can’t defend us any more (I know the Tories were complicit in this too, but Starmer took it even further) and is allowing dangerous cultural factions to run local politics. We British do not like this and it’s going to get worse.
The most fundamental mistake Karmer and his gang of incompetents made was to think that their stonking election win gave them the mandate to do whatever they wanted. It didn’t and they don’t understand, even now, that they didn’t win: the Tories lost. Arrogance and weakness have been the hallmark of this administration, a lethal combination. It cannot end a moment too soon.