Politics / Six things we learnt about Starmer's government this week |
Keir Starmer began the year saying that any minute he wasn’t focused on the cost of living would be a minute wasted. Then he spent the first week of the political year engaged in foreign affairs and yet another U-turn. While Downing Street wants to talk about ‘the year of proof’ for its reforms of the public services, it has less ability to control the news agenda than even recent Tory administrations. Here are six things we have learnt this week.
Fair enough, you might think, when Donald Trump is on the scene, a president who is not only capable of impulsive action but seems to positively revel in controlling the news agenda as if he was still the main attraction in a reality television show. Starmer has done pretty well at dealing with Trump and keeping his head down when the left demands condemnation of Trump’s latest move, as they did over US special forces abducting Narco-Presidente Nicolas Maduro from his Venezuelan lair.
Labour has no coherent political message
My understanding from a well-placed source is that the PM was, at first, fairly relaxed about the raid, even as the left went caracas. But Labour’s public statements got tougher when the lawyers got involved. ‘On Venezuela, Starmer’s first instinct was to shed no tears for Maduro,’ a senior Labour figure revealed:
He was immediately corrected by FCDO lawyers and changed his language.........