Uk politics

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.

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.

When Morgan McSweeney concluded his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee about the Peter Mandelson affair, a senior Labour figure remarked: “What really did we learn from all this? That Keir made a bad decision, wants someone else to blame and didn’t really know what was going on in his own government. Fancy that!” The fact that 14 Labour MPs voted to refer the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee (the body which forced Boris Johnson from the political stage) – and a total of 53 recorded no vote in his defense – is far from a ringing endorsement of his leadership. But the significance of the Mandelson hearings has been misunderstood.

The American-Israeli attacks on Iran were publicly called Epic Fury, but behind the scenes it is Britain’s handling of the war which provoked that reaction – not just from Donald Trump but from the UK’s allies in the Gulf. A Labour peer was in Washington when the first missiles slammed into Tehran on Friday evening and Keir Starmer refused to voice support. A member of the Trump administration told the peer: "Britain used to not contribute that much, but you were a good ally. Now you’re contributing nothing and you’re not even a good ally." A version of events has quickly become established: a Prime Minister with a near-religious belief in international law hid behind the advice of his Attorney General, Richard Hermer, that the attacks were illegal.

Westminster, London Donald Trump might be determined to acquire more US land – here in Britain, however, our leaders are determined to give it away. A deal to hand over control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is in the final stages of parliamentary approval. Trump initially backed the deal, yet U-turned after his Greenland overtures were spurned. “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY,” he declared online. “NO REASON WHATSOEVER.” Bemused, he later asked a British reporter in the Oval Office: “I don’t know why they’re doing it. Do they need money?

When John Swinney, the Scottish National Party leader, and former ambassador Peter Mandelson visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office a few months ago, the President showed them three different models for his planned renovation of the East Wing of the White House, which he has demolished to build a new ballroom. “If you’re going to do it,” Scotland’s First Minister suggested, “you might as well go big.” This Wednesday marked one year since Trump’s election victory, and going big captures the essence of his second term – bold and controversial moves, which have impressed even British politicians who thought him reckless in his first term.

This just in: Steve Hilton, former Fox News host and policy advisor to British PM David Cameron, wants to be the next media star to challenge California governor Newsom, Politico reports.   Newsom's mettle was previously tested by conservative radio host Larry Elder, who failed to get the governor out of office in 2021 during an unsuccessful recall effort. Elder received the most votes out of forty-six people running to replace Newsom, but since most voted against replacing the governor, that became irrelevant.   Not to mention California has not had a Republican in Sacramento since Arnold Schwarzenegger won a recall election against Democratic governor Gray Davis in 2003...   Hilton seemingly fled the UK to Atherton, California, in 2012 for his wife's job.