Charmless Sir Keir Starmer has done the Tories a favour by showing he’s stuck in first gear
SIR Keir Starmer did the Tories a favour today as he was gently grilled by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire.
Performing in the clunky style which is beginning to stir alarm within his own party, Starmer demonstrated why he is no shoo-in as our next Prime Minister.
He was asked how he would sort out the NHS, cut waiting lists, improve the economy and make Britain richer.
He had no coherent answer.
How can any political leader at the last rally before a General Election appear on the BBC’s flagship political show with nothing to say?
The idea that this is 1997 all over again, with Sir Keir as an unstoppable new Tony Blair, is for the birds.
Starmer is no charmer. There is no spark, no personality, no hint that things might get better.
Even his closest allies fear Starmer is not ready to be PM.
Derbyshire revealed why as she quizzed him on bread-and-butter issues such as reforming hospitals and rebooting the economy — easy territory for any self-respecting politician.
It was annihilation in three easy stages.
“How would you get doctors and nurses to work weekends?” Vic asked.
“We’d pay them more,” said Sir Keir.
“Where’s the money?” “We’d grow the economy.”
“How?” “We’ve got a plan.”
Ms Derbyshire pounced like a panther: “It’s like crossing your fingers,” she said sweetly.
The Labour leader, known as “Sir Flip-Flop”, pretended to laugh when shown a “word cloud” of responses from voters when asked what he actually stands for.
Far from reflecting the vote-winning charisma of a PM-in-waiting, the people’s answers were: “Don’t know” . . . “No idea” . . . “Nothing.”
Former Blairite storm troopers Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell admit they are equally mystified.
Shrinking poll lead
In a podcast for the leftie Guardian, the trademark Campbell lip-curl — usually reserved for “Tory scum” — was turned on Starmer.
“You want your policies to be known about, and you want to be able to defend them and to argue them,” bleated Ally.
“I sometimes worry that the Labour Party today doesn’t.
“We (Blair’s team) were not happy if we were not making the news and making the weather.
“Sometimes being attacked is the only way that you can get out there and make your case.”
“Prince of Darkness” Mandelson, an avowed Starmer ally, admitted Labour is not ready for power.
“Do I think Labour under Keir Starmer is ready for government? Well actually, I don’t,” he said.
“I just implore people to realise, not just that they shouldn’t be complacent, but just how much detailed, hard slog and work is involved in preparing the programme of government.”
Charlie Falconer, Blair’s old flatmate and former Lord Chancellor, warned: “Where the economy and cost of living is the issue, simply to mimic the Conservatives may not offer enough change to the public.
“You’ve got to have some convincing explanation about what you are going to do differently on the economy from the Conservative Party.”
The criticism is carefully couched, but it reveals growing nervousness in Labour ranks over their shrinking poll lead since Rishi Sunak went on the offensive over net zero and immigration.
Labour’s lead has slipped from a solid 20 per cent to ten to 15 per cent.
This will undoubtedly narrow further as voters begin to see the gulf between Labour and Tories on issues including small boats and criminal gangs.
Starmer today announced he would scrap plans to send illegal migrants to Rwanda — even as the Supreme Court begins to consider giving them the all-clear.
Voters are indignant at Starmer’s vow to sign us back up to the EU’s rulebook and give Brussels the final say on who comes and who stays.
Killer question
Gender wars have opened another dangerous new front, with voters overwhelmingly hostile to Starmer’s half-baked claim that “women can have a penis”.
In any election head-to-head between the two leaders, this could prove the killer question.
Rishi Sunak took the issue head-on last week, insisting: “A man is a man and a woman is a woman. It’s just common sense.”
He is backed by a majority, with barely one in seven believing “a trans woman is a woman”.
Last month I compared Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer with the hare and the tortoise and wondered which one would win the race.
Yesterday Deltapoll provided an answer.
Almost half of voters backed Rishi in a 10km race, while only 17 per cent — one in six — thought Starmer had a prayer.
THE BBC famously gave wall-to-wall coverage to claims that Britain’s dismal economic growth had turned us into the post-Brexit “Sick Man of Europe”.
When it emerged we had actually grown faster than France, Germany and Japan, the news went almost unreported.
PM Rishi Sunak pointed this out with some vigour but was given short shrift.
Until he showed them the BBC website, which had seen their brief item about the mistake dumped for a tale about a missing pullover!