Some people will tell you this Labour Party has got absolutely everything wrong since coming to power on July 5 last year. But they are wrong. Because, fabulously and hilariously, exactly 12 months ago the party, very quietly, passed a new ruling which made it easier to get rid of the Prime Minister. Just savour that for a moment. Prime Minister Keir Starmer passed a ruling to make it easier to kick out Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Thick is really too small a word. At the time the ruling was, as ever, based purely in Sir Keir’s self-interest – it was actually designed to quietly slap down the Unions a bit, as they were seen as the biggest threat to destabilising government and unseating the PM. It has backfired spectacularly.
Through hubris, lack of vision, or most likely both, poor old Sir Keir did not see just how spectacularly and how lightning fast huge swathes of his actual MPs would start sharpening the knives.
A few months ago I started suggesting Keir had to go, that the damage he and his student rag-week MP’s were doing to the country was so deep, so caustically divisive, and so irrevocable that he should not be allowed to see-out a full term.
But, as crystal ball gazing is something of a fools errand in this game I made sure I qualified my remarks by pointing out Starmer had, slightly terrifyingly, a 174-seat majority. In reality it was never going to happen.
Just a few weeks later I do not need to put those qualifiers in anymore. I don’t think anyone would bet against Keir walking. Can there be anyone, anywhere in our wonderful country, who thinks Sir Keir will see out a full term in office?
There are many in his own Government who aren’t convinced he will see out a full week in office. I suspect Sir Keir may be one of them.
To quote Lady Bracknell (almost exactly), “to have one political disaster in the first year of office may be regarded as a misfortune, but to have one political disaster a day looks like carelessness…”
Because that is where we are – every 24 hour news cycle heaps more pressure, more embarrassment, more scorn and more ridicule on this Prime Minister. It also provides more pressure to quit and call a fresh General Election.
Let’s just have a quick refresh on just how bad this year has been – and I don’t mean for Keir Starmer, I mean for you and me, I mean for Britain.
In no particular order (you can pick your favourites…):
He backed the best pal of a convicted paedophile and appointed the twice-resigned-in-disgrace Peter Mandelson as his US Ambassador;
He was “proud” to stand by his tax-avoiding deputy Angela Rayner, who also resigned in disgrace;
His favourite senior adviser Paul Ovenden quit yesterday after horrible sexually explicit messages he had sent about Labour MP Diane Abbott were made public.
This is the party of course which sells itself as a champion in the battle against rampant sexism. Yeah, right. (There has always felt something uneasy and patronising about Starmer’s approach to women.)
Starmer told us he would “smash the gangs” and end illegal migration by small boat. Illegal migration instead has hit record levels and the anger on Britain’s streets threatens to spill over into unprecedented violence and civil disobedience.
Then there was Starmer’s Grooming Gangs shame – faced with calls from Kemi Badenoch and other Conservatives for a national inquiry, Starmer accused them of “calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the Far Right”. Which looked for all the world like putting his party politics before the safety of abused children.
Then there was Starmer’s confusion over what a woman was. “Trans women are women,” he said in 2022, adding, a year later, that a woman could have a penis. After the Supreme Court explained to him that a woman actually couldn’t have a penis he, rather belatedly, changed his mind.
Then there is the Chagos Islands deal – the totally unnecessary deal which will significantly weaken Britain, make the world a more dangerous place and cost you and me billions.
Then there are the U-turns. He announced he would cut the spiralling disability welfare costs but was sabotaged by his own MPs and backed down; he told the Waspi women in 2022 they must get justice, then he told them last year they would not be getting any compensation.
Let’s not forget the winter fuel payments U-turn, the National Insurance lies, the betrayal of our farmers, the class-war trashing of successful private schools, the two-child benefit cap disaster… it goes on and on.
And that is before we get to the real disaster looming over Britain, which is Rachel Reeves-shaped.
We are poorer, our desperately-needed productivity is on life-support, wealth creators are being punished and leaving the UK, youth unemployment is a national scandal, taxes are pushing an 80-year high… and she is still in the job.
But then, as I hope I have evidenced here, no-one in their right mind would ever accuse our Prime Minister of being a good judge of character.