They could actually have regained some trust. They could actually have demonstrated integrity. They could even have inspired respect. All they needed to tell us was that, in retrospect, the cut to the winter fuel allowance had been a mistake, that it had gone down badly with the voters and that they were prepared to admit they’d got it wrong. Simple.
But no. Oh no. This Labour government is so lacking in any common decency, let alone competence, and so devoid of any sense of honesty, that it chose to pretend that a decision that the whole country knows was forced upon it for political expediency was actually taken because the economy is now apparently “strong enough”.
Here’s what Keir Starmer posted on X yesterday: “The economy is improving, and I want you to feel that in your day-to-day lives – that is why we are expanding eligibility for the winter fuel allowance.”
This is of course such utter garbage that it’s barely worth more than a nanosecond of our time. Because what really alarms me is not that the economy, far from being “stronger”, is on a cliff edge, but rather that someone in this horrendous government decided to gaslight us by pretending that black is white. Who was it? Starmer himself (which wouldn’t surprise me at all)? Reeves? Morgan McSweeney, the power behind the throne? The ghost of Alastair Campbell? The old man on the number 38 bus?
Or was it all of them (minus the old man), so indoctrinated by their culture of deceit – we might as well just call it lying – that it never occurred to any of them that the voters would be totally unmoved by their absurd protestations, and, worse, would in fact be disgusted.
So, we now have a government that not only flip-flops for fun, not only pursues policies that are leading to economic ruin, but also one that treats us all as a bunch of fools and whose instinctive response to anything is to lie through its teeth.
This weekend, bored England football fans in Barcelona, frustrated by their team’s pathetic display against the minnows of Andorra, turned not on Thomas Tuchel or Harry Kane, but on Keir Starmer. The four-letter word they chanted was ignored, sensibly enough, by ITV. But they were merely reflecting the mood of millions of us up and down the land. Those who voted for him are experiencing extreme buyer’s remorse. Those who stayed at home rather than go to the polling stations, all the better for punishing the Tories, should never forgive themselves.
It’s now seven years since I first identified Keir Starmer as a dishonest politician, and the very worst at the shameless practice of question-dodging. He then flip-flopped his way to power. I genuinely hoped, however, that once in government the very nature of the high office he holds would drag out from inside him a degree of statesmanship and integrity.
I hoped in vain. And it’s time to tell the truth: Keir Starmer is a disgrace to the government he leads and to the country that elected him. If we didn’t know before yesterday, we sure do now. In the name of God, man, just go.