There’s an entire glorious genre of photos that we might tentatively entitle: ‘Keir Starmer standing in front of people who visibly loathe him.’ His trip to the Gulf this week means we can add military personnel to the list of people who’ve been subjected to these grey reluctant photobombs, alongside oil workers, school children and the cabinet.
Starmer claiming some active part in the Iran ceasefire is like the cast and crew of The Clangers wanting credit for the Artemis moon mission
Sir Keir’s latest trip is a masterpiece in ambulance chasing. He has jetted out, thus conveniently avoiding being present for the slow-motion multi-clown car pile-up that is his party’s local election campaign, to the Middle East in a desperate attempt to be involved in the de-escalation of the Iran war. Sir Keir’s decision not to be involved – even if it was taken basically by accident – was a wise one, however it is baffling why he thinks, having been unable to even mobilise one warship, anybody would be hanging on his word when it comes to clearing up the mess. Yet here he comes, clattering in, the Frank Spencer of international relations: ‘I have just one thing to say to all sides: “Ooo Betty!”’
Starmer’s actual pronouncements out in the Gulf were no less ridiculous. On arrival in Saudi Arabia to play kissy-kissy with the intensely dubious Mohammed Bin Salman, he claimed that ‘We’ve just reached this ceasefire’. There are contestants on The World’s Strongest Man who have to do less heavy lifting than the word ‘we’ in that sentence. Unless the PM is currently identifying as a Pakistani – not impossible – it is very difficult to work out what role he had that would justify his use of an active first-person plural verb in relation to the ceasefire. ‘It’s very important we get the Strait of Hormuz open’ he emphasised, as if he himself would be there, strapped to the prow of an oil tanker singing ‘We Shall Overcome’.
‘There’s work to do’ he continued. True, but you won’t be doing it. Starmer claiming some active part in the Iran ceasefire is like the cast and crew of The Clangers wanting credit for the Artemis moon mission. ‘I’m here to carry out this work’ he continued. Having burned bridges with America and being hated by Iran, that work is probably more likely to look like three hours idly browsing the duty free at Dubai airport than actually sitting down with the belligerents.
His speech in front of the disgruntled servicemen inevitably swerved from fantasy into management speak. Asked, reasonably, what on earth he was doing there, Starmer replied ‘I get the opportunity… to have the discussions, to coordinate our actions and to go forward collectively.’ Move over Metternich, there’s a new international relations guru in town! We might as well have sent over ChatGPT with a pair of comedy glasses.
Behind him, the soldiers stood, arms crossed and frowning, articulating via body language what anyone – except, it seems, the PM and the circle of second rate LinkedIn Praetorians with which he surrounds himself – can see: that Sir Keir hasn’t got a clue.
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