Robots will never replace Sir Keir Starmer. No need. Silicon Valley is already using him as the template for an army of cloned officials to be sold worldwide.
The Starmer App was on display at PMQs as he answered planted questions at the start of the session. A tame backbencher said the word ‘train station.’ ‘We’re taking railway services back into public ownership,’ parroted Sir Keir, ‘and making ticketing better and fairer.’ A second MP said ‘teachers.’ ‘Skilling up the next generation is vital to economic growth,’ came the auto-reply. Up stood the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and she had targets aplenty to choose from. The government is reeling. Two questionable resignations have piled pressure on Sir Keir who is trying to ‘stabilise the economy’ in the same way that Vesuvius stabilised Pompeii.
Kemi brought up ‘borrowing costs’ and she begged Sir Keir not to use the Tories or ‘global factors’ as an excuse. Then came her substantial question. An unnamed entrepreneur has told her that Labour is damaging his business quite a bit. But she gave no more facts about this soon-to-be bankrupt financial wizard. What business? Where is it? Which sector? Employing who? Serving which customers? What will be the emotional cost to him of Labour’s incompetence? Any human detail will interest us.
But no. Kemi reduced it all to an auditor’s verdict. ‘The business won’t exist in four years time,’ she said blankly. So what?
Sir Keir stood up, wreathed in bland smiles. ‘The Tories were economic vandals,’ he said. Then he sat down. Easy job. Kemi mentioned ‘the British retail consortium’ and spewed out a lot of guff about borrowing costs which currently outstrip the budget for schools and universities. This rhetoric sounds good to wonks. But it’s hopeless for voters. She mentioned a diplomatic kerfuffle involving the Chagos Islands and she quoted the OBR who are sceptical about Labour’s financial tactics. Her impenetrably dull questions read like a PPE final exam paper. We all know that Sir Keir is made from a joist of metal. It seems that Kemi has been cut from the same rusting lump of scrap. One robotic leader is enough. We have two. She asked him to rule out new tax rises. And he fibbed blatantly.
‘She knows the limit of what I can say from this despatch box,’ he said. Total nonsense. He’s free to say what he likes about taxes. But he didn’t expect her to spot the lie. She didn’t. Flushed with confidence, he tossed a grenade at her.
‘We can’t just tax our way out of the problems they left us.’ Bang! That pleased Labour’s backbenchers.
Finally, Kemi got to the day’s big issue. Tulip Siddiq.
Labour’s anti-corruption minister resigned yesterday even though she’d done no wrong. Seems a bit fishy. And it’s rich ground for the Tories. Did Tulip quit because her record was spotless? If so, Sir Keir appears to be setting a new standard for his government. Honest MPs must resign. Virtue will be ruthlessly hunted down and eliminated. Our crooked PM wants to recruit only the sharpest and wiliest fraudsters from around the world. That’s how it looks. But Kemi lacked the wit to focus on this absurdity.
She allowed Sir Keir to engage in verbal pirouettes and perambulations. ‘She referred herself to the independent adviser who found there was no breach, no wrong doing,’ he waffled. But everyone wanted to hear the reason. An honest MP resigns – what for? The cry was heard several times from Tory backbenchers. ‘Why?’ The question that Kemi should have asked but didn’t.
She’s getting worse. Sir Keir should award her a damehood for services to Labour. Her route to the top is the source of her failings. Too much, too fast. Kemi is a Westminster Barbie, shaped by think tanks and policy wonks in SW1. She should get out more. Or get out of the way and let a street fighter take over. The Tories are sinking under her leaden leadership.
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