On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he
wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also,
until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer >>> thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and
considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get
more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely
hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get >>> to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody
difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies
everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and >>> the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely
did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be
prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed
his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election
victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long
enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though >>> much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for >>> Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a
landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May
and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was
42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired
the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election
and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the
missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue
Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering
up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department. >>>
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the >>> campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election
(McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and
VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election >>> and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his
mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives. >>>
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had
arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in >>> the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse
than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing
any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting
free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria.
Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to >>> the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully
defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter
fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with
white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the >>> chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom
escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024
the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed >>> -u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO >>> national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees,
which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close
and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with
special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups,
was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM
and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs
Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his
house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths
on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day,
unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who >>> rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against
left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo >>> Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose
and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen
on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the >>> Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as
a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it
for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He >>> neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against
the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and >>> McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him
to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the
last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil
servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers
saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure
starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for >>> an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with
ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of
encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron >>> and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to >>> make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who
could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by
aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he
worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the
nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader. >>>
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls,
where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his >>> own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed
the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running >>> to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking >>> his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became >>> a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by
backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government >>> there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides
of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but
the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use
British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This >>> indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable
to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing.
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as
attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall
which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up
sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion
for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no
jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments
would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise,
rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His
authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to >>> no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to
dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are
football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess. >>> Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked
into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had >>> remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to
Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson
and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had
appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could
deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt >>> know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign >>> Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business >>> interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him
security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed,
ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had
known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins,
an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation >>> that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then
bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was
toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when
Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the
net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising
on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it
lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most
since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which
will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The
chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5 >>> billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield
(having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because
they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his
wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he
had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he >>>> wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer >>>> thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and
considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get
more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely
hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get >>>> to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody
difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies
everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and >>>> the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely
did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be >>>> prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed
his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election
victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though >>>> much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for >>>> Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was >>>> 42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired >>>> the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election >>>> and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the
missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue >>>> Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department. >>>>
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the >>>> campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election
(McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and >>>> VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election >>>> and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his
mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had
arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in >>>> the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse
than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing >>>> any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting >>>> free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to >>>> the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully
defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with
white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the >>>> chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom
escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed >>>> -u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO >>>> national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees, >>>> which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with >>>> special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups, >>>> was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM >>>> and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs
Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who >>>> rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against
left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo >>>> Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose
and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen >>>> on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the >>>> Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as >>>> a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it >>>> for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He >>>> neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against >>>> the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the
last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil
servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure
starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for >>>> an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of
encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron >>>> and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by
aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he
worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the
nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader. >>>>
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls,
where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed >>>> the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running >>>> to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking >>>> his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became >>>> a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government >>>> there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use
British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This >>>> indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing.
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as
attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up >>>> sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no >>>> jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments >>>> would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise,
rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His
authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to >>>> no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to
dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are
football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess. >>>> Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked
into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had >>>> remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson
and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had
appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt >>>> know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign >>>> Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business >>>> interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him
security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed,
ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had
known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation >>>> that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was
toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when >>>> Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the
net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most
since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which
will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The >>>> chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5 >>>> billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield
(having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because
they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he >>>> had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he >>>>> wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer >>>>> thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and
considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get >>>>> to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies
everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and >>>>> the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be >>>>> prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election
victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though >>>>> much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for >>>>> Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was >>>>> 42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired >>>>> the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election >>>>> and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the
missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue >>>>> Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department. >>>>>
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the >>>>> campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election
(McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and >>>>> VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election >>>>> and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his
mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had
arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in >>>>> the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing >>>>> any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting >>>>> free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with
white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the >>>>> chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed >>>>> -u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO >>>>> national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees, >>>>> which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with >>>>> special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups, >>>>> was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM >>>>> and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs
Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who >>>>> rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against
left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen >>>>> on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the >>>>> Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as >>>>> a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it >>>>> for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He >>>>> neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against >>>>> the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil
servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure
starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for >>>>> an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron >>>>> and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he
worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the
nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed >>>>> the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running >>>>> to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking >>>>> his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became >>>>> a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government >>>>> there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use
British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This >>>>> indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing.
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as
attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up >>>>> sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no >>>>> jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments >>>>> would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise,
rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His
authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to >>>>> no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are
football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess. >>>>> Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had >>>>> remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had
appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt >>>>> know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign >>>>> Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business >>>>> interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him
security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation >>>>> that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when >>>>> Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the
net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The >>>>> chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5 >>>>> billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield
(having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he >>>>> had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
And the first woman PM in the Western world.
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:25:49rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he >>>>>> wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer >>>>>> thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and
considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get >>>>>> to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies >>>>>> everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and >>>>>> the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be >>>>>> prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election >>>>>> victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though >>>>>> much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for >>>>>> Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was >>>>>> 42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired >>>>>> the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election >>>>>> and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the >>>>>> missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue >>>>>> Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department.
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the >>>>>> campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election >>>>>> (McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and >>>>>> VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election >>>>>> and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his >>>>>> mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had >>>>>> arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in >>>>>> the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing >>>>>> any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting >>>>>> free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with
white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the >>>>>> chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed >>>>>> -u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO >>>>>> national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees, >>>>>> which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with >>>>>> special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups, >>>>>> was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM >>>>>> and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs >>>>>> Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who >>>>>> rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against
left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen >>>>>> on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the
Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as >>>>>> a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it >>>>>> for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He
neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against >>>>>> the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil
servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure >>>>>> starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for >>>>>> an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron >>>>>> and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he >>>>>> worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the >>>>>> nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed >>>>>> the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running >>>>>> to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking >>>>>> his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became >>>>>> a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government
there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use >>>>>> British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This
indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing. >>>>>>
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as >>>>>> attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up >>>>>> sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no >>>>>> jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments >>>>>> would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise, >>>>>> rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His
authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to >>>>>> no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are >>>>>> football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess. >>>>>> Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had >>>>>> remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had >>>>>> appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt
know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign >>>>>> Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business >>>>>> interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him
security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation >>>>>> that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when >>>>>> Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the
net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The >>>>>> chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5 >>>>>> billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield >>>>>> (having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he >>>>>> had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
And the first woman PM in the Western world.
No mean feat ;)
On 23/06/2026 20:34, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:25:49rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote: >>
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he >>>>>>> wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>>>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer
thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and >>>>>>> considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get
to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies >>>>>>> everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and
the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be >>>>>>> prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election >>>>>>> victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>>>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though
much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for
Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>>>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>>>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was >>>>>>> 42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired >>>>>>> the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election >>>>>>> and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the >>>>>>> missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue >>>>>>> Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>>>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department.
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the
campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election >>>>>>> (McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and >>>>>>> VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election
and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his >>>>>>> mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had >>>>>>> arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in
the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing >>>>>>> any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting >>>>>>> free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>>>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>>>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with >>>>>>> white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the
chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>>>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed
-u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO
national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees, >>>>>>> which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>>>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with >>>>>>> special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups, >>>>>>> was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM >>>>>>> and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs >>>>>>> Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>>>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>>>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>>>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who
rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against >>>>>>> left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen >>>>>>> on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the
Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as >>>>>>> a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it >>>>>>> for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He
neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against >>>>>>> the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>>>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil >>>>>>> servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>>>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure >>>>>>> starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for
an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>>>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron
and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>>>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he >>>>>>> worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the >>>>>>> nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed >>>>>>> the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running
to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking
his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became
a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>>>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government
there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>>>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>>>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use >>>>>>> British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This
indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>>>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing. >>>>>>>
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as >>>>>>> attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>>>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up >>>>>>> sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>>>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no >>>>>>> jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments >>>>>>> would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise, >>>>>>> rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His >>>>>>> authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to
no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are >>>>>>> football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess.
Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had
remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>>>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had >>>>>>> appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>>>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt
know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign
Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business
interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him >>>>>>> security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>>>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation
that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>>>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when >>>>>>> Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the >>>>>>> net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>>>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>>>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The >>>>>>> chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5
billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield >>>>>>> (having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>>>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he >>>>>>> had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
And the first woman PM in the Western world.
No mean feat ;)
The Tories have had three women PMs.
Labour Zero,
but they are allowed to make the sandwiches.
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:42:38rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 20:34, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:25:49rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he
wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>>>>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer
thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and >>>>>>>> considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get
to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies >>>>>>>> everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and
the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be
prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election >>>>>>>> victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>>>>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though
much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for
Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>>>>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>>>>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was
42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired
the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election
and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the >>>>>>>> missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue
Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>>>>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department.
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the
campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election >>>>>>>> (McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and
VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election
and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his >>>>>>>> mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had >>>>>>>> arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in
the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing
any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting
free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>>>>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>>>>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with >>>>>>>> white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the
chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that >>>>>>>> millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>>>>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed
-u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO
national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth. >>>>>>>>
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees,
which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>>>>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further >>>>>>>> overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with
special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups,
was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM
and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs >>>>>>>> Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>>>>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>>>>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>>>>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who
rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against >>>>>>>> left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and >>>>>>>> delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen
on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the
Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as
a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it
for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He
neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action. >>>>>>>>
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against
the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>>>>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil >>>>>>>> servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>>>>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure >>>>>>>> starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for
an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>>>>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron
and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>>>>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO >>>>>>>>
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he >>>>>>>> worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the >>>>>>>> nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed
the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running
to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking
his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became
a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>>>>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government
there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>>>>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>>>>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use >>>>>>>> British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This
indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>>>>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing. >>>>>>>>
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as >>>>>>>> attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>>>>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up
sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>>>>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no
jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his >>>>>>>> backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments
would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise, >>>>>>>> rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His >>>>>>>> authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to
no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are >>>>>>>> football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess.
Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had
remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and >>>>>>>> imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>>>>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had >>>>>>>> appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>>>>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt
know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign
Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business
interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him >>>>>>>> security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>>>>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation
that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>>>>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when
Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the >>>>>>>> net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>>>>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>>>>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The
chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5
billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield >>>>>>>> (having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>>>>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he
had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer. >>>>>
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
And the first woman PM in the Western world.
No mean feat ;)
The Tories have had three women PMs.
thumps up.
Labour Zero,
Booo
but they are allowed to make the sandwiches.
Equal opportunity - Everyone has a purpose eh
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:42:38rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 20:34, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:25:49rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he
wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>>>>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer
thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and >>>>>>>> considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get
to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies >>>>>>>> everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and
the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be
prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election >>>>>>>> victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>>>>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though
much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for
Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>>>>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>>>>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was
42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired
the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election
and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the >>>>>>>> missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue
Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>>>>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department.
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the
campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election >>>>>>>> (McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and
VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election
and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his >>>>>>>> mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had >>>>>>>> arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in
the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing
any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting
free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>>>>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>>>>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with >>>>>>>> white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the
chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that >>>>>>>> millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>>>>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed
-u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO
national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth. >>>>>>>>
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees,
which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>>>>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further >>>>>>>> overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with
special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups,
was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM
and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs >>>>>>>> Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>>>>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>>>>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>>>>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who
rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against >>>>>>>> left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and >>>>>>>> delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen
on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the
Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as
a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it
for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He
neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action. >>>>>>>>
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against
the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>>>>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil >>>>>>>> servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>>>>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure >>>>>>>> starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for
an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>>>>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron
and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>>>>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO >>>>>>>>
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he >>>>>>>> worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the >>>>>>>> nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed
the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running
to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking
his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became
a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>>>>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government
there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>>>>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>>>>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use >>>>>>>> British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This
indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>>>>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing. >>>>>>>>
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as >>>>>>>> attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>>>>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up
sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>>>>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no
jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his >>>>>>>> backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments
would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise, >>>>>>>> rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His >>>>>>>> authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to
no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are >>>>>>>> football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess.
Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had
remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and >>>>>>>> imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>>>>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had >>>>>>>> appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>>>>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt
know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign
Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business
interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him >>>>>>>> security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>>>>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation
that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>>>>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when
Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the >>>>>>>> net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>>>>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>>>>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The
chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5
billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield >>>>>>>> (having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>>>>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he
had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer. >>>>>
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
And the first woman PM in the Western world.
No mean feat ;)
The Tories have had three women PMs.
thumps up.
Labour Zero,
Booo
but they are allowed to make the sandwiches.
Equal opportunity - Everyone has a purpose eh
On 23/06/2026 20:49, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:42:38rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote: >>
On 23/06/2026 20:34, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 3:25:49rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he
wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also,
until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer
thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and >>>>>>>>> considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>>>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>>>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get
to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>>>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies >>>>>>>>> everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and
the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>>>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be
prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>>>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election >>>>>>>>> victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long
enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though
much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for
Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a
landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May
and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was
42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired
the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election
and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the >>>>>>>>> missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue
Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering
up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department.
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the
campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election >>>>>>>>> (McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and
VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election
and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his >>>>>>>>> mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had >>>>>>>>> arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in
the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>>>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing
any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting
free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria.
Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>>>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter
fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with >>>>>>>>> white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the
chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that >>>>>>>>> millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>>>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024
the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed
-u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO
national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth. >>>>>>>>>
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees,
which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close
and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further >>>>>>>>> overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with
special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups,
was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM
and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the >>>>>>>>> perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs >>>>>>>>> Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his
house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths
on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day,
unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who
rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against >>>>>>>>> left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and >>>>>>>>> delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>>>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen
on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the
Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as
a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it
for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He
neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action. >>>>>>>>>
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against
the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him
to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>>>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil >>>>>>>>> servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers
saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure >>>>>>>>> starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for
an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with
ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>>>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron
and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who
could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>>>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO >>>>>>>>>
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he >>>>>>>>> worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the >>>>>>>>> nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>>>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed
the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running
to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking
his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became
a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by
backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government
there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides
of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but
the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use >>>>>>>>> British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This
indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies. >>>>>>>>>
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable
to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing. >>>>>>>>>
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as >>>>>>>>> attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall
which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up
sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion
for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no
jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his >>>>>>>>> backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments
would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise, >>>>>>>>> rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His >>>>>>>>> authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to
no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>>>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are >>>>>>>>> football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess.
Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>>>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had
remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and >>>>>>>>> imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to
Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>>>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had >>>>>>>>> appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could
deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt
know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign
Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business
interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him >>>>>>>>> security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>>>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>>>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins,
an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation
that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then
bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>>>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when
Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the >>>>>>>>> net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising
on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it
lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>>>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>>>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The
chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5
billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield >>>>>>>>> (having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>>>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his
wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he
had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer. >>>>>>
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
And the first woman PM in the Western world.
No mean feat ;)
The Tories have had three women PMs.
thumps up.
Labour Zero,
Booo
but they are allowed to make the sandwiches.
Equal opportunity - Everyone has a purpose eh
At the end of the day the sandwiches are more
valuable that what the brothers produce.
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he >>>> wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer >>>> thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and
considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get
more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely
hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get >>>> to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody
difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies
everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and >>>> the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely
did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be >>>> prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed
his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election
victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though >>>> much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for >>>> Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was >>>> 42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired >>>> the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election >>>> and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the
missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue >>>> Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department. >>>>
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the >>>> campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election
(McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and >>>> VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election >>>> and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his
mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had
arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in >>>> the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse
than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing >>>> any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting >>>> free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to >>>> the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully
defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with
white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the >>>> chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom
escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed >>>> -u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO >>>> national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees, >>>> which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with >>>> special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups, >>>> was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM >>>> and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs
Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who >>>> rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against
left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo >>>> Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose
and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen >>>> on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the >>>> Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as >>>> a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it >>>> for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He >>>> neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against >>>> the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the
last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil
servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure
starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for >>>> an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of
encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron >>>> and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by
aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he
worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the
nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader. >>>>
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls,
where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed >>>> the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running >>>> to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking >>>> his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became >>>> a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government >>>> there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use
British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This >>>> indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing.
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as
attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up >>>> sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no >>>> jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments >>>> would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise,
rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His
authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to >>>> no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to
dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are
football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess. >>>> Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked
into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had >>>> remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson
and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had
appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt >>>> know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign >>>> Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business >>>> interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him
security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed,
ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had
known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation >>>> that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was
toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when >>>> Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the
net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most
since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which
will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The >>>> chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5 >>>> billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield
(having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because
they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he >>>> had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
On 23/06/2026 20:10, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 12:55:42rC>PM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
On 23/06/2026 17:45, Tara wrote:
On Jun 23, 2026 at 11:49:32rC>AM EDT, "Julian" <julianlzb87@gmail.com> wrote:
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he >>>>> wanted it. rCyBecause IrCOd be good at it,rCO he replied. This has always been
told as evidence of CameronrCOs arrogance and hubris, but it was also, >>>>> until the end, a defendable position. IrCOve always thought Keir Starmer >>>>> thought largely the same. HerCOd risen to the top of the law and
considered politics a logical career change. He believed he could get >>>>> more done that way. The Cameron quote IrCOve always thought genuinely >>>>> hubristic came when he told another friend questioning his desire to get >>>>> to No. 10: rCyHow hard can it be?rCO
Both Cameron and Starmer know the answer to that. Politics is bloody >>>>> difficult. Our problems are deep and intractable. There are enemies
everywhere (including in your own party) and you have to have a plan and >>>>> the ability to execute it. Until the referendum campaign, he largely >>>>> did. But Starmer was less temperamentally or politically equipped to be >>>>> prime minister.
In his resignation speech, Starmer fairly boasted that he had changed >>>>> his party, driven out the anti-Semites and won a landslide election
victory. He also deserves credit for keeping the show on the road long >>>>> enough with Donald Trump to get a tech arrangement over the line (though >>>>> much of that is now in doubt) and for continuing BritainrCOs support for >>>>> Ukraine. But his mistakes far outweigh his triumphs. How exactly did a >>>>> landslide win turn into a premiership shorter than that of Theresa May >>>>> and Boris Johnson?
Douglas Adams said the meaning of life, the universe and everything was >>>>> 42. So here are the 42 reasons Keir Starmer failed:
1. He thought politics reprehensible and beneath him and never acquired >>>>> the craft of doing it well.
2. The original sin was that he had no plan before the general election >>>>> and his efforts to develop one in power were comical (remember the
missions, pillars and targets?).
3. Knowing he didnrCOt know how to prepare for government, he hired Sue >>>>> Gray to do it for him, but she had spent decades blocking and covering >>>>> up mistakes, not driving policy development or even running a department. >>>>>
4. He let his (brilliant) campaign manager Morgan McSweeney focus on the >>>>> campaign, rather than force him to consider life after the election
(McSweeney now admits this was a mistake).
5. He approved a pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance and >>>>> VAT before the election, which he did not need to do to win the election >>>>> and which dramatically limited his options once he won.
6. The election landslide led Starmer to mistakenly talk about his
mandate when it was actually a generational rejection of the Conservatives.
7. On winning power, instead of telling the country the cavalry had
arrived to save the economy, which Rishi Sunak had already got moving in >>>>> the right direction, he and Rachel Reeves said things were even worse >>>>> than they feared and announced they would have to put up taxes, killing >>>>> any feel-good factor.
8. As soon as he won, Starmer was embroiled in Giftgate after accepting >>>>> free glasses for himself and free clothes for his wife, Lady Victoria. >>>>> Thinking himself a good man, he couldnrCOt comprehend how bad it looked to
the public and took far too long to close the issue down, resentfully >>>>> defending his wife to a fault.
9. His first major mistake in power was to let the Treasury cut winter >>>>> fuel benefits for pensioners, a move which fills the public with
white-hot rage to this day.
10. Since he was unable to formulate a political argument, he missed the >>>>> chance to means test this and make the reasonable argument that
millionaires should not be on benefits.
11. He let Reeves take months and months, during which doom and gloom >>>>> escalated. So by the time she lifted her first red box for Budget 2024 >>>>> the finances had deteriorated and money was even tighter.
12. The pair boasted that growth was their top priority and then imposed >>>>> -u40 billion of tax rises, including a -u25 billion raid on employersrCO >>>>> national insurance, which has cost jobs, investment and growth.
13. Starmer failed to drop the plan to slap VAT on private school fees, >>>>> which barely earned a penny for the Exchequer, forced schools to close >>>>> and forced less affluent parents into the state sector, further
overburdening state schools, particularly when it came to children with >>>>> special educational needs.
14. His second foundational error, according to voters in focus groups, >>>>> was his handling of the Southport killings of three young girls. The PM >>>>> and his team denied it was a terrorist attack even though the
perpetrator Axel Rudakubana had been referred to the governmentrCOs
Prevent programme and had ricin and an al Qaeda training manual in his >>>>> house. This created the notion that he would not tell difficult truths >>>>> on security and cultural issues. Again, it still comes up to this day, >>>>> unprompted.
15. Starmer supported harsh sentences against those on the far right who >>>>> rioted, while leaving the impression he did not speak out against
left-wing protestors rCo a tendency which left him characterised as rCyTwo
Tier KeirrCO.
16. Starmer assumed turning up to work as a serious person and
delivering would be enough, but delivery requires a drive and purpose >>>>> and relentlessness he lacked.
17. He assumed that not being the rCywicked ToriesrCO would allow him to get
a much better deal with the EU. Turns out, the EU is not much less keen >>>>> on his rCycherry pickingrCO on single market access as they were when the >>>>> Tories tried it.
18. Having never been a minister, he first praised the civil service as >>>>> a Rolls-Royce maligned by the Conservatives, then publicly denounced it >>>>> for presiding over a rCytepid bathrCO of mediocrity, then backed down. He >>>>> neither tamed it nor reformed it nor galvanised it into action.
19. Starmer chose Chris Wormald as his first Cabinet Secretary (against >>>>> the advice of the selection panel rCo who wanted Tamara Finkelstein rCo and
McSweeney, who wanted Oliver Robbins), the most pedestrian,
establishment, unrevolutionary character available, and then asked him >>>>> to enact radical reforms. A year later Starmer became apparently the >>>>> last person on earth to realise he was wrong, something any civil
servant or journalist could have told him on day one.
20. In general, Starmer ran a Downing Street operation which ministers >>>>> saw as a black hole, from which decisions did not emanate. Failure
starts at the top.
21. Starmer himself lacked any curiosity about policy. He would read for >>>>> an hour and emerge to say nothing, no aide says he bombarded them with >>>>> ideas on a Monday morning.
22. This led to a failure to interrogate policy properly. Instead of >>>>> encouraging arguments between his aides to thrash things out, as Cameron >>>>> and Boris Johnson did, he cut off debate by snapping: rCyIrCOm not going to
make decisions by committeerCO.
23. Starmer was hopeless with his own MPs, the one group of people who >>>>> could bring him down before 2029. Dragged to the Commons tea room by >>>>> aides, he complained later: rCyNever make me do that again.rCO
24. He was personally petulant, stubborn and distant from those he
worked with.
25. When the going got tough, Starmer threw everyone else under the
nearest bus to save himself rCo never an attractive attribute in a leader.
26. The worst example of this was his speech on immigration controls, >>>>> where he warned about Britain becoming an rCyisland of strangersrCO. By his
own admission, he barely read the speech; he had no idea that it echoed >>>>> the words of Enoch Powell. When Labour MPs went berserk, he went running >>>>> to his biographer Tom Baldwin and said he regretted those words, kicking >>>>> his own team in public. Many of them never forgave him and No. 10 became >>>>> a bear pit of resentment.
27. On Gaza, he did not have a firm policy, first offending his MPs by >>>>> backing IsraelrCOs right to defend itself, then turning on the government >>>>> there when it was politically expedient to do so, offending both sides >>>>> of the conflict.
28. On Iran, he claimed credit for keeping Britain out of the war, but >>>>> the UK armed forces played a role and Starmer allowed the US to use
British bases for rCydefensiverCO attacks on IranrCOs missile sites. This >>>>> indecisiveness meant Britain lost face with Gulf Arab allies.
29. While Starmer continued British support for Ukraine, he was unable >>>>> to persuade anyone bar France to join his coalition of the willing.
30. He appointed his closest friend in politics, Richard Hermer, as
attorney general, enshrining a legalistic punctiliousness in Whitehall >>>>> which prevented radical reforms to key problems.
31. Most obviously this led to Starmer advocating for a deal to give up >>>>> sovereignty of the Chagos Islands while also handing over -u30 billion >>>>> for the privilege rCo all to please an international court which had no >>>>> jurisdiction over the matter.
32. The beginning of the end came when Starmer caved in to his
backbenchers over plans to reduce the amount at which benefits payments >>>>> would increase. Again, this was billed as a cost-cutting exercise,
rather than a moral crusade to get the disabled back to work. His
authority was shot thereafter.
33. The lack of understanding came, in part, because Starmer has next to >>>>> no hinterland. He cannot name a favourite book, he claims not even to >>>>> dream and, in private, most attest that his only talking points are
football and family.
34. Appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US was another mess. >>>>> Starmer first wanted George Osborne but allowed himself to be talked >>>>> into Mandelson by McSweeney.
35. Starmer seemed totally untroubled by the evidence that Mandelson had >>>>> remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction and
imprisonment for paedophilia. Extraordinarily, he never even talked to >>>>> Mandelson before giving him the job.
36. When the news broke about cringeworthy messages between Mandelson >>>>> and Epstein, Starmer fired Mandelson but never explained why he had
appointed him in the first place rCo as a political operator who could >>>>> deal with Trump. He made a rod for his own back by pretending he didnrCOt >>>>> know the key information.
37. When it emerged that Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign >>>>> Office, had found a way to mitigate problems with MandelsonrCOs business >>>>> interests with China and Russia and had consequently granted him
security clearance, Starmer reacted like a scolded child. He claimed, >>>>> ridiculously, that he would never have appointed Mandelson if he had >>>>> known there were commercial problems and then summarily fired Robbins, >>>>> an act which backfired.
38. For months last year, Starmer and Reeves allowed endless speculation >>>>> that they would break their election pledge and raise income tax, then >>>>> bottled it. He seemed not to understand that breaking the pledge was >>>>> toxic and that the speculation was itself killing growth.
39. Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in a reshuffle last year and when >>>>> Miliband refused to move, he failed to fire him. That allowed the
net-zero crusade to trump the need for economic growth or capitalising >>>>> on AI, leaving the UK to buy oil and gas from around the world when it >>>>> lies untapped in the North Sea.
40. He boasted repeatedly about raising defence spending by the most >>>>> since the Cold War but then approved a Defence Investment Plan which >>>>> will only raise spending from 2.6 per cent of GDP to 2.68 per cent. The >>>>> chiefs say they need more than -u30 billion. Starmer offered them -u13.5 >>>>> billion.
41. He and his aides permitted Andy Burnham to stand in Makerfield
(having previously blocked him running in Gorton and Denton) because >>>>> they mistakenly thought he would lose to Reform. Whoops!
42. In his resignation speech, Starmer teared up at the thought of his >>>>> wife and children, but like Theresa May and Gordon Brown before him, he >>>>> had mostly failed to show passion in the job.
Tim Shipman
More than enough reasons.
And if people think Starmer was unprepared Burham says hold my beer.
Starmer was the epitome of...
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
- Roger McGough
Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Well, a sorta one.. hah
Always remember - you did produce a Churchill once...:)
His mum, Jennie Jerome, was a great character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Randolph_Churchill
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