Keir Starmer
18 ways to save your political career
Dear wannabe leaders of Britain. What a lot of you there are! I’ve been writing about leadership and the craft…
Is the country ready for Chancellor Ed Miliband?
When Morgan McSweeney concluded his evidence on Tuesday to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee about the Mandelson affair, a senior…
Portrait of the week: Starmer avoids ethics inquiry, Birmingham’s bin strikes end and Trump is targeted by a gunman
Home The House of Commons voted 335 to 223 against a Conservative-led motion to refer Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime…
‘It’s worse than during the worst of Boris’: how the civil service turned against Starmer
Somewhere in the vast array of documents the Cabinet Office has gathered on the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the…
Portrait of the week: Olly Robbins is sacked, inflation rises and the Strait of Hormuz is (briefly) opened
Home Sir Keir Starmer tried to explain himself to parliament after Sir Olly Robbins was sacked as permanent under-secretary of…
Why Trump hasn’t stuck the knife into Starmer
As public messages of support go, it scored pretty low on the conviction-o-meter. “Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United…
Starmer squirms on Mandelson debacle
Keir Starmer is enduring perhaps his most uncomfortable afternoon in the House Commons since being elected Britain’s Prime Minister. He…
What is the supply side of Britain and Europe’s decline?
In his new book Why Populists Are Winning: and How to Beat Them, British MP Liam Byrne argues that it’s…
What’s Britain’s place in the post-Iran world order?
Midway through James Joyce’s Ulysses, the character J.J. O’Molloytips his hat to ‘Our watchful friend, the Skibbereen Eagle’, a playful…
Will Keir Starmer be a casualty of the Epstein fallout?
In America, important men don’t seem to suffer too much over their links to the late Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton,…
Only one man could bridge this footballing divide
It reminded me a little of that wonderful Christmas Day truce in the first world war, when the two sides…
Iran’s strike exposes the danger of the Chagos handover
In a sharp escalation, Iran attempted to strike the joint UK-US base Diego Garcia with two intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Both…
‘We’ll wake up on 8 May and realise that the Conservative party’s gone’: Inside Reform’s plan to devour the Tories
When Zia Yusuf first walked into the headquarters of Reform UK, he gestured at the empty room and asked: ‘Where’s…
Keir Starmer has surrendered to Ed Miliband – and we are all paying the price
Labour MPs who want Wes Streeting to be their leader have, apparently, one great fear. If their man triggers a…
A revival of Alan Bennett’s early work is long overdue
Until the archive is made available, the diaries will have to do. But some superb dramas from the past century are sadly missed
The insidious rise of Tannoy spam
Six people meet for a picnic on Richmond Green. They eat Popeyes chicken nuggets, Sainsbury’s sausage rolls, M&S sandwiches, Cadbury…
Revenge of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys
French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating rose by six points last week. It will likely continue to climb following his…
‘Whose side are you on?’: How Keir Starmer alienated Britain’s allies over Iran
The American-Israeli attacks on Iran were publicly called Epic Fury, but behind the scenes it is Britain’s handling of the…
Tracey Emin should remake her bed
Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the US bombing of Iran is inglorious, but one should suspend disapproval to understand how…
If only Britain was as important as Iran thinks we are
I am becoming rather fond of Prime Minister Starmer’s major foreign policy announcements. In early January, after US forces swooped…
Trump isn’t the greatest threat to the special relationship
Britain’s refusal to fully back the United States over strikes on Iran has triggered an unusually public transatlantic row. It…
Has it all gone wrong between Trump and Starmer?
‘The Special Relationship only exists when the Americans want something,’ a former Downing Street aide observed after Donald Trump rejected…
Inside the daring plan to reclaim the Chagos Islands
Peros Banhos on the Chagos archipelago looks like your basic tropical island paradise: turquoise waters and golden sands, waves lapping…
How Keir Starmer might still hang on
A government minister and I dined just after the fiasco of the 2017 general election, with Theresa May clinging to…
Apart from Mandelson, who is Labour’s biggest freebie lover?
Keir Starmer is Labour’s king of freebies. He promised to clean up politics, but has accepted more free stuff than…
