There is plenty for Starmer ideologues in this week’s diary, both for and against, though it should not put any reader out of countenance to acknowledge that it is quite possible for a man to do his best during extremely difficult times, while sometimes not being very good at it.
The principal story this week, surely, concerns Sir Keir’s clear view that we should obey international law on Iran and ignore the bellicose trumpetings from the White House. The PM is rightly wary of the odium Britain attracted for playing handmaiden to George ‘Dubya’ Bush over Iraq, and he is also no doubt aware how such an involvement would be a perfidy against at least one of Labour’s traditional values that he still holds dear. (It would also piss off the voters, who never have liked America.)
It is tempting to hope that his decision to stay out of the war, except in defending Britain’s own territory, might at last represent the PM’s being summoned to grace on the dichotomy between the EU or the US. But we have been here before.
Keir Starmer is a serious man, a lawyer who simply doesn’t get politics, and it shows. When dealing with international affairs, however, he is invariably talking about serious matters, which since he is a lawyer are probably meat and drink to him. So it may actually be a cackhanded compliment to suggest that the reason for which he has no aptitude in domestic politics is that it is anything but serious.
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But the PM’s assiduous adherence to the rule of law is not universally applauded, of course, and criticism comes from those politicians who are themselves anything but serious. We know already that the Tories can’t resist the vulgar and embarrassing bloviating from the White House on any subject, and certainly not when it’s about boys and their toys.
It was always considered almost profane for British politicians to criticise their leaders openly in international diplomacy, whatever their party. But for the Tories, their obeisance to the White House is almost liturgical in its fervour, and this only adds to the puzzle of what game they are playing.
The public hate President Trump and all his works. That includes: ICE, institutionalised racism, dropping bombs on anybody who failed to send President Trump a birthday card and making his wife president of the United Nations Security Council – its being acknowledged that the principal attributes for the role generally include more than being a former ‘glamour model’ and having clean fingernails.
There is also this from Robert Peston: “There is a critique of Starmer, that I have heard from soldiers and spies, that the British national interest should be less about following international law and more about a hard-nosed assessment of how to keep the country safe and secure.”
So, leave everything to the men with guns, then, including the moral judgement about right and wrong? On this, it is a reassurance to have Sir Keir as PM.
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Meanwhile, the other Keir Starmer was making a pig’s rectum out of explaining Labour’s defeat in the by-election. His absurd attack on the Greens as swivel-eyed tofu-wielding far-left extremists made him look ridiculous. A letter to his MPs after the vote claims: “We’ve seen the true colours of Zack Polanski’s Greens in this campaign. The Greens were able to capitalise on an endorsement from George Galloway to win over enough voters to push them over the line.”
But it all looks rather silly when set against the phrase Hannah Spencer used three times in her acceptance speech, (from which we might judge that it will play a part in the Greens’ strategy): how people believe having worked hard they should be entitled to “a nice life”.
Not quite the blood-curdling rhetoric of Lenin at the October Revolution, we might think.
Many MPs were rather put out of countenance by the letter. So much so that, when confronted by their concerns, the PM distanced himself from his own words. Instead of accusing the Greens of “sectarian politics”, he admits he should be trying to win over their voters rather than slagging them off.
It is understandable therefore that his MPs are becoming exasperated. One points out that, in proclaiming the Greens a party of far-left extremists, they are suggesting its voters fit into that category too; then adds: “Good luck with that!”
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Amid this week’s lively polemic in the saloon bar, a hush fell as the editor swallowed her pint of Old Unprintable then ate the glass, before proclaiming: “Outside the Labour Party, no-one thinks the Greens are as awful as Reform, or that Labour would have zero common ground with the Greens and should treat them as the enemy”.
She has a point. (In fact, she has never been known to be wrong, obvs.)
But in the meantime, voters are impatiently waiting for that position to assume a somewhat less enigmatic aspect. Focus groups following the by-election show that circumstances threaten to become still more uncongenial for Labour. The Manchester result will give wavering voters every encouragement to believe a vote for Green is no longer a wasted vote. In fact, they may begin to believe that, instead, the wasted vote may be for Labour.
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“Pull out, Digger. The dogs are pissing on yer swag.” With these immortal words, Australian PM Bob Hawke was effectively frogmarched out of office by the equivalent of our Conservative Party’s ‘men in grey suits’: those leading members of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee who notoriously call at No.10 to inform their incumbent that his or her time is up. But they do things differently in Australia, of course. They would have worn hats with corks and parked their didgeridoos in the umbrella stand.
But how do they do it in the British Labour Party? Nobody seems to know, nor (even though discontent is rife) how they may find the bottle. In any case, Keir Starmer’s comparative prowess in international relations at this precarious time would save him from the odium of his grasp of domestic issues.
Since the by election defeat, Pecksniff has heard despairing reports from Labour MPs. One criticises the calibre of the new intake of MPs on the grounds that many are ‘McSweeney’s children’, his chosen candidates, so are “simply not up to the job” as a result of the tight control over the candidacies by “the cult” (as it’s described) who now run No.10. They don’t have the stomach for rebellion, and anyway they haven’t had the memo.
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There are many actors in the by-election farrago who should be feeling less than pleased with themselves. Not Zack Polanski: he is certainly feeling his oats; Nigel Farage, not so much. Pecksniff has been banging on about how Reform’s balloon has burst… though perhaps more accurately is deflating and making that satisfying ‘blowing raspberries’ noise. A raspberry for the chances of Nigel Farage being the next PM. Reform’s numbers continue to fall.
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Fifty years ago, when your correspondent was canvassing for the Labour Party in Ipswich on behalf of the wonderful Ken Weetch, it was quite usual to see Sikh families in little crocodiles trooping off to vote, led by the magnificently moustachioed paterfamilias. He would carry their voting cards and distribute them at the door of the polling station.
But what they did in the voting booth was their own affair: it was never known for any voter to be accompanied into the booth. Nor does there seem to be any evidence of such a practice in all the hoo-ha whipped up by Tories and Reform over the by election. One of the convocation of the wise at the Muckrakers acts as polling clerk at elections, and says:
“It’s pretty hard to even get two people into one of those booths – I know from helping a blind person when I was poll clerking. If we see someone lurking beside someone else we’re straight on it. If we were to see someone taking someone else’s paper we’d be on the hotline straightaway.”
So it seems ‘family voting’ in the way that Reform and the Tories are kvetching is strictly verboten and taken seriously enough to incur prompt reporting. But then they are not actually claiming it, of course. It is merely a cynical insinuation, a sinister charade of affronted principle. Even the intellectually repugnant Priti Patel (Witham) in an LBC interview could not make the claim. She could only claim it “could be looked at potentially by the Electoral Commission”. Could be. Looked at. Potentially. But she flared her nostrils in that way she has, as of a horse which has just had a firework stuck up its bum. So it must be serious.
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So we have an imputation entirely without evidence and based on the most blatant racist presumptions. These days, however, that is meat and drink to the Tories. James Cleverly (Braintree) kicks off what is clearly intended as an orchestrated campaign, shamelessly and cynically slurring all those involved.
But already, though the Tories’ creatures on the ground may be dwindling in number, they are still obeying the call to arms. Here is Conservative Councillor Debbie Richards from Ipswich, dutifully picking up the innuendo and spreading it wider, still without evidence. Her remark about suspecting “it goes on behind closed doors” is a puzzle, since the offence could only take place at a polling station in full public view. Which rather suggests she has no idea what she is talking about.
Cllr Richards has previous on this kind of underhand politics. She never admits her political affiliations and quickly blocks anyone who challenges her. There will be others equally devious, and Pecksniff would like to know about them.
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Which brings us appropriately to a new Representation of the People Bill, which has been walked out into the Commons this week. It is full of good things. In particular, it introduces more automated forms of voter registration, lowers the voting age to 16, expands the range of submissible voters’ ID and closes loopholes on political donations. The lower voting age should mean the introduction of a new and more left-leaning tranche of the electorate.
What was missing was any sign of abandoning the first past the post system. It is clear Labour would prefer not to have to consider it. That may be because it would be radical and signal the end of one-party government, whereas British politics have been based on adversarialism.
But it is a problem which can only grow more pressing. The confusion of trying to vote tactically in the by-election showed how disruptive it is to any vision of a fair democratic system. But multiply that contest by 650…
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So how would Labour even contemplate the change? As you would expect, dear reader, no political dinner party in North London or Cambridge or Downham Market can be complete these days without at least one guest from this mighty organ holding pride of place. So it is that, for the first time, we hear whispers through a colleague of the dreaded word ‘coalition’. Labour is notoriously bad at contemplating shared power, so its mere mention is a sign of the times.
Another example of saying the unsayable comes from Prosper, the new Conservative Party ginger group. It too is reading the room, and in a piece for Conservative Home, David Gauke whispers the phrase ‘proportional representation’.
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Yet another straw in the wind. This week the Daily Telegraph performed a spectacular reverse ferret by suggesting what we need is to increase immigration…
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As we go to press, another story breaks which shows that the Blue Labour monster has yet to suffer the stake through its heart. The PM’s former carrot coloured consigliere still has his advocates in the cabinet, one of whom at the Home Office is presently causing grief to No.10 by pushing even harder anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has written an article for the Guardian in which she claims that immigrant settlement grants “immediate access to welfare and social housing”. She is the home secretary: this could not be a mistake. Britain’s leading academic on immigration issues declares it “a deliberate and incendiary false claim”, and the newspaper amended the article accordingly.
Meanwhile, over 100 Labour MPs have made a formal complaint against the home secretary’s policies, and it is understood No.10 isn’t keen on the launch of her leadership bid controversial initiative. In the good old days this would have meant resignation. It might still.
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The usual plaudits go (by carrier pigeon) to Kate Viscardi, Celina Błędowska, Karl Whiteman, Stace Richards, David Patey, Malcolm Lynn, Liz Crosbie, John Elworthy, Mary Marshall, James Porter and Rebecca Denness.
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