Sir Keir Starmer has become a national laughing stock.
No wonder the Prime Minister’s approval rating has sunk so low. His policies are as vicious as they are incoherent
CAMILLA TOMINEYASSOCIATE EDITOR14 September 2024 • 12:00pm
It’s taken all of 10 weeks for Sir Keir Starmer to turn into the Alan Partridge of British politics. The signs were always there – from the vanity of his breakfast Brylcreem to his failure to understand that he (and not his hardworking father) was the butt of all those “My dad was a toolmaker” jokes during the general election.
But like a washed-up radio DJ who cannot take to the wheel without wearing a pair of driving gloves, stickler-for- the-rules Starmer is fast becoming a parody of his authoritarian socialist self.
The public perception of our nanny state Prime Minister was perhaps best summed up this week by a social media post featuring a picture of a stern-looking Starmer, captioned: “Anyone caught having more than one Greggs per week will be sentenced to life imprisonment.”
When you’ve been elected with just 34 per cent of the popular vote, you’re never going to have universal appeal, but it seems the more the public see of Starmer, the less they like him.
Forty-six per cent now have an unfavourable view of the Prime Minister, according to the latest Ipsos polling – the joint-highest figure during his time as leader of the Labour Party.
His lowest approval rating in three years comes after he and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves stripped around 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel payments. So far Starmer has spent most of his time in office opining on the state of broken Britain in the vein of pub-bore Partridge down the local boozer.
Most voters certainly wouldn’t choose to have a pint with him – but what about his own MPs? He’s alienated members of his party with the winter fuel decision, which prompted one rebel vote and 52 Labour abstentions in the Commons on Tuesday. A great many more will have been holding their noses, furious at being required to support a cut that even George Osborne wouldn’t contemplate.
Labour MPs are already angry that he hasn’t gone, in their view, far enough in betraying Israel, with the “ceasefire now” brigade presumably similarly opposed to the idea of allowing Ukraine to use Storm Missiles to strike Russia. And we’ve now got the threat of yet more GP strikes after Labour so willingly caved into the junior doctors’ 22 per cent pay demand.
At this rate, North Norfolk Today could be recruiting a new co-host in no time.
At this rate, North Norfolk Today could be recruiting a new co-host in no time.
