Next Friday marks a year since Labour came to power. To celebrate the occasion, Sir Keir Starmer has done a bizarre sit down interview with the Observer in which our hapless premier admits that, er, he basically has got all of it wrong. Quelle Surprise. Across 3,700 words the Hon. Member struggles, manfully, to walk the balance between contrition and resolution. For those who cannot face another Starmer long-read, never fear, here is Mr S to bring you the lowlights….
Renouncing ‘island of strangers’ speech:
The top line from the piece is Starmer regretting a speech he made less than six weeks ago. He tells Tom Baldwin ‘That particular phrase, no, it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it.’ He adds that he should have read through the speech properly and ‘held it up to the light a bit more’. You don’t say…
Admits he and his team’s ignorance of British history:
Ever the north London lawyer, Starmer is at pains to protest that he had no idea his comments would be likened to those of the High Tory Enoch Powell. ‘I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were’ he insists, ‘or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell. I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either.’ Google next time?
Renouncing his Rose Garden speech:
Not content with dumping on his current speechwriter, Starmer also savages his team’s initial effort in Downing Street. Turns out, he now thinks that saying that ‘things will get worse before they get better’, was – shock! – a mistake because it ‘squeezed the hope out… We were so determined to show how bad it was that we forgot people wanted something to look forward to as well.’ Does he stand by any speech he’s given in No. 10….?
Throwing Sue Gray under the bus:
Prior to this week’s welfare disaster, perhaps the most dramatic moment of Starmer’s brief premiership came after 93 days when he axed Sue Gray as his chief of staff. ‘Not everyone thought it was a good idea when I appointed her,’ he tells Baldwin. ‘It was my call, my judgment, my decision, and I got that wrong. Sue wasn’t the right person for this job.’ Ouch.
Leadership at its finest eh?
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