Keir starmer

Wednesday

Lara Brown

Revealed: Andy Burnham’s reassuringly bland Cambridge years

From our UK edition

There appears to be a missing chapter in the story of Andy Burnham. Depending on the whims of voters in Makerfield, Britain could soon have its first prime minister with a degree in English literature and its first Cambridge-educated premier since Stanley Baldwin. And while we have been treated to countless long reads on the so-called King of the North – his political philosophy, his years in Manchester and his apprenticeship in New Labour – his undergraduate years have barely been scrutinised. Burnham is tight-lipped about his Cambridge days (1988-1991). His comments over the years have been mostly limited to saying he had ‘imposter syndrome’ as he struggled to fit in at a university that was dominated, he felt, by private school students.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Belfast burns, Sullivan resigns and the Iran ceasefire cracks 

From our UK edition

Home A horrible video circulated on social media of a man on the ground in a Belfast street being stabbed in the head. His life was saved by bystanders, one with a hurling stick; a Sudanese man, aged 30, who had arrived from Dublin and been granted leave to remain, was charged with attempted murder. In reaction, houses were set on fire and a bus and cars were burnt; in east Belfast, 100 masked men kicked in doors and broke windows, saying they were ‘getting the foreigners out’. J.D. Vance, the American Vice-President, blamed the death in Southampton of Henry Nowak on ‘the mass invasion of migrants’. David Lammy, the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, said he had phoned Mr Vance and told him he was wrong.

Monday

Roger Kimball

Why America is sounding the alarm about Britain and Europe

Back in November, the State Department warned that “mass migration poses an existential threat to western civilization and undermines the stability of key American allies.” In February, in his address to the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expanded on that theme. After the Berlin Wall fell, Rubio noted, many in the West thought “the end of history” had finally arrived. Utopia was nigh. Western nations opened their borders, forsook spending on defense in order to bolster the welfare state and “outsourced” their national sovereignty. This was, Rubio warned, to ignore both human nature as well as the lessons of “over 5,000 years of recorded human history. And it has cost us dearly.

Henry Nowak

Thursday

Tim Shipman

Revealed: the missing Mandelson messages

Darren Jones has become the UK government’s Walter Model, the general known during World War Two as "the Führer’s fireman" for his deployment to shore up any position which appeared lost. In that capacity, Britain’s first Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister had the thankless task of presenting the government’s case to the House of Commons on Monday following the publication of 1,500 pages of documents relating to Peter Mandelson. Jones himself was spared direct embarrassment because none of his exchanges with the disgraced peer came to light in the trawl of memos, emails and WhatsApp exchanges.

mandelson

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Kemi gives me hope

From our UK edition

I had a notion the other day that there was possibly more I could offer to this fleeting world. A feeling that with life having been comparatively kind to me, perhaps there is something I could put back. I have these thoughts about once every month – and usually they are idly dismissed because they are either unrealistic or homicidal. For example, it would be well nigh impossible to smash every single white, middle-class, middle-aged liberal in the throat until his trachea exploded in a chiaroscuro of livid pink foam and vaporised black lung stuff. Way too many tracheas and not enough time, sadly.

Thursday

Michael Gove

The Pope’s AI intervention shames our politicians

I was born into a sternly Presbyterian culture. Politically, I’m more Orange than Donald Trump’s skin tone. But today I am on my knees giving thanks to the Pope. He has produced the most powerful political document of the year, taking on the greatest challenge of our times. His first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, deals with the changes which will be wrought to all our lives by artificial intelligence in the months and years ahead. AI will transform our economies and societies massively and irrevocably; it will change what it means to be human; it may even mark the end of humanity itself. If it takes the Pope to alert us to this revolution then perhaps the Reformation wasn’t such a good idea after all.

AI

Wednesday

Owen Matthews

Is the West deserting Ukraine at precisely the wrong moment?

From our UK edition

Moscow is coming under direct drone attack, the Russian economy is creaking, patriotic bloggers are ever more apocalyptic in their predictions of military disaster and evidence is piling up that Russia’s elites are becoming seriously disillusioned with the war and Vladimir Putin himself. Is this the moment for Britain to desert Ukraine by easing sanctions and refusing to commit more money to Kyiv’s military? Last week, the British government issued licences for the import of gasoline products from Russia refined in a third country. No. 10 also approved  licences for British companies to continue to service tankers carrying Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Piers Morgan

No one likes Arsenal, we don’t care

Arsenal’s triumph in finally winning the Premier League again after 22 long, often eyeball-wrenchingly tortuous years has gone down like a Keir Starmer motivational ‘I’m not leaving!’ speech, which is ironic given the Prime Minister is an avid Gooner like me. It’s hard to understand why a club that boasts a fanbase including us, Jeremy Corbyn, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, the late Osama bin Laden and Prince Harry (whose matchday allegiance has followed a similar path to his royal duties, in that he never turns up) attracts such opprobrium that we were recently named the ‘most-hated supporters’ in the league. But as with Millwall in their hooligan heyday, if no one likes us, we don’t care.

Tim Shipman

Can Andy Burnham really do it?

From our UK edition

30 min listen

Andy Burnham is the man on everyone’s lips in Westminster. As he campaigns to return to parliament in the Makerfield by-election, Tim and James bring you the definitive guide to Burnham – and what could happen next. They’re joined by Joshi Herrmann, founder and editor of Mill Media, whose profile of Burnham had Westminster buzzing over the weekend. He shares his view of the Greater Manchester mayor’s ‘unusual gifts and glaring weaknesses’, whether ‘Burnhamism’ really exists, and if Burnham’s emotional style of politics could survive the brutality of No. 10.

Wednesday

Jawad Iqbal

The unbearable smugness of Arsenal fans

Arsenal are Premier League champions after a 22-year wait: their first title since the famous Invincibles season under Arsène Wenger in 2004. The title was sealed after Manchester City (serial champions, let’s not forget) failed to beat Bournemouth last night, handing Arsenal an unassailable lead at the top of the table with one game remaining. The team deserves all the plaudits for winning the Premier League, but what is it with Arsenal and their fans when it comes to celebrations? Why do they always go so over the top? It is cringeworthy stuff, reeking of a certain smug sense of undeserved entitlement, and enough to bring out the “celebration police” mentality in every other fan across the land.

arsenal
The Spectator

Labour must be honest with voters about the coming crisis

From our UK edition

So far, Labour has staged a contested leadership election in government only once – 50 years ago, in 1976. The New Economics Foundation once declared 1976 to be post-war Britain’s happiest year, judging by income equality and public spending. Cosseted by memories of a hot summer of space hoppers and Swap Shop, the left-wing thinktank brushed over strikes, stagflation and Britain going – to use the obligatory phrase – cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Compared with Labour’s current phoney war, that election was enviably swift. Harold Wilson resigned on 16 March; three rounds of voting by Labour MPs later, and James Callaghan entered Downing Street on 5 April.

Tuesday

Tim Shipman

Will the bond markets undo Burnham?

From our UK edition

13 min listen

Andy Burnham’s campaign for Makerfield is already gathering pace, complete with Oasis soundtrack to a new campaign video. But as Labour’s would-be challenger tries to pitch himself as the man to replace Keir Starmer, questions remain over his economic credibility. Michael Simmons and Tim Shipman join Noa Hoffman to Burnham, the bond markets, and if Starmer can really dig in if Burnham wins the by-election.

Thursday

James Heale

Starmer rival Wes Streeting finally resigns from cabinet

After days of deliberation, Wes Streeting has finally quit Keir Starmer’s government. At the stroke of 1 p.m. GMT, the Ilford MP resigned as Health Secretary in a two-page letter that laid out his differences with the UK Prime Minister. He details, at length, the results the pair have achieved in government and says they offer "good reasons for me to remain in post." But: As you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonorable and unprincipled to do so. It is the opening salvo of a merciless script that goes for Starmer’s jugular. Streeting pins blame for the "unprecedented" results of last week, which pose "an existential threat to the future integrity" of the UK on Starmer himself.

wes streeting
islamist
Charles Moore

Keir Starmer is downplaying the Islamist threat to Jews

At the anti-Semitism “summit” in Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer achieved a personal first. He used the word “Islamists.” But in order to utter a word he had previously avoided in relation to the subject, Sir Keir had to approach it crabwise. Instead of identifying Islamists as the main ideological and physical threat to British Jews, he said: “We’re clear-eyed about the fact that anti-Semitism does not have one source alone: Islamists, far-left, far-right extremism, all target Jewish communities.” Islamists were thus inserted into the conversation but also downplayed. It is obsolete not to recognize that the far right in Britain – for the moment at least – more or less leaves Jews alone.

Tim Shipman and Noa Hoffman

Inside the farcical coup against Keir Starmer

It is an old adage of leadership contests that “if you shoot for the King, you’d better not miss” – but no one expected the starting gun to be fired at Charles III. At the exact time when the monarch was reading the King’s Speech to Parliament on May 13, allies of Wes Streeting, the health secretary, put a bomb under proceedings by making it clear that he is set to challenge Keir Starmer. “Yes, it’s inevitable,” one says. Streeting resigned the following day. The timing horrified MPs even on Streeting’s wing of the party. A cabinet minister declared: “Having failed with his kamikaze coup, Wes has now undermined every single one of his colleagues and disrespected the King.

Wednesday

Cockburn

WATCH: Keir Starmer declares himself a ‘gooner’

They say being honest in the face of adversity can help save your neck. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer this afternoon proudly told the House of Commons, “I am a gooner.” https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2054575703371153826 Cockburn must be charitable to Starmer (someone has to) and note that his word choice offers an example of two nations divided by a common language. In American English – very online American English – a “gooner” is someone who indulges in extensive bouts of self-gratification. Thanks to Harper’s magazine for making the term more widely known.  In British English, however, “gooner” is a variation of “Gunner,” meaning “fan of Arsenal Football Club.” This is only slightly less embarrassing.

keir starmer gooner
Douglas Murray

Things can always get worse

I have spent the past week marvelling at the behaviour of our commentating class. They seem to have whipped themselves back into that familiar frenzy which must lead, inexorably, to the Prime Minister stepping down. ‘He has to go’; ‘The most incompetent prime minister of my lifetime’; ‘Things can’t go on like this’ – these were the general sentiments revolving around Keir Starmer even before his party’s thumping in last week’s local elections. The problem is that some of us have a long-ish memory. So when people say the Starmer government is uniquely incompetent or ineffectual, a tiny flare goes off in my mind. Have these people forgotten Theresa May?

Charles Moore

Cling on, Sir Keir

From our UK edition

People laugh at Sir Keir Starmer for failing to acknowledge that he has almost no hope of survival. This is unfair. Until you absolutely know you will resign, you must not give the slightest indication that you might. By doing so, you encompass your own destruction. ‘I shall fight on. I fight to win,’ said Margaret Thatcher. She announced her resignation the next day. Sir Keir is not nearly at that stage. His position is stronger than hers. There has been no Geoffrey Howe-style resignation followed by a denunciation of the Prime Minister in the Commons. Indeed, there has been no formal challenge to Starmer’s leadership so far, let alone a leadership vote like that which undermined Mrs T.

Toby Young

First they came for Mandelson…

From our UK edition

At the time of writing, I haven’t seen the King’s Speech, but it’s a safe bet it will include a bill to enable wayward peers to be stripped of their titles. The point, of course, is so that Keir Starmer, if he’s still PM by then, can show us just how much he loathes Peter Mandelson. It’s the equivalent of Loyalists after the Restoration exhuming Cromwell’s corpse so they could ‘execute’ him and stick his head on a spike in Westminster Hall. But because Mandelson hasn’t been found guilty of a crime – and is unlikely to be – the bar for removing a title will have to be quite low. It will inevitably be some version of ‘bringing the Lords into disrepute’.

Lawrence Newport

Britain is sick of the Westminster psychodrama

The British Army has long lived by a simple maxim: “Prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance.” It remains as true today as ever. Disasters are rarely unavoidable or destined to occur. Usually, they are the consequence of decisions – or the refusal to make them – over several weeks, months, and even years. Any government would be wise to follow this advice before entering office. Yet Keir Starmer's Government, much like many of those that came before it, will fail because it lacked the prior preparation and planning to prevent the poor performance it subsequently delivered. Each time Westminster convinces itself that the problem was just personnel Living standards in decline. Industries leaving. Jobs going elsewhere. Wages stagnant. Communities fractured.