Ameer Kotecha

You get two impressions of Britain at the moment. First, that nothing works. Second, that the state is not on the side of those who try to work for a living and generally do the right thing, but on the side of those who intend to ride on the backs of others and generally take the mick. Keir Starmer today leaves the country in a worse place on both counts. Let us take them in turn. People are understandably coming to the conclusion that they might as well not bother, and instead take the dole from the outstretched hand of the state Starmer did not cause the broken state but, as one of the bureaucracy’s chief princelings, he has done nothing to fix it.

It is hard not to grin. Our lawyerly soon-to-be-former Prime Minister, Mr Process, stands accused of, er, failing to follow the proper process. Olly Robbins was chief mandarin at the Foreign Office until he was unceremoniously thrown under the bus by Starmer in a panicked attempt to find a scapegoat for his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson to the country’s most senior ambassadorial role. Robbins has now applied to the High Court for a judicial review of Starmer’s decision to dismiss him. The sight of Sir Keir being hoisted by his own petard in his final week in office when he wants to be left alone to focus on booking his tickets to the World Cup final and unscrewing the lightbulbs from the Downing Street flat, is undeniably rather funny.

At the Rabbi Jonathan Sacks memorial lecture at the LSE this week, David Miliband ‘broke his silence’ after days of intense speculation that he will soon be announced as Andy Burnham’s Foreign Secretary. Unfortunately, I think Miliband as foreign secretary would represent at best stale continuity and at worst a disaster We shall have to wait and see whether he gets the call-up. But his speech will have further convinced his admirers that he has both the intellectual heft and unusually extensive experience to make a great success of the role.

The revelation in The Spectator last week that the Treasury is more concerned with boosting its DEI outcomes than hiring people who can count, was – for those who have served in our blessed civil service – shocking but not surprising. But the truth is that this numeracy story is not a wacky aberration or an isolated case. It is, to quote Dominic Cummings, ‘the system working as intended’. Let me explain. The dominance of DEI ideology in recruitment to some of the most powerful roles in the state has long roots, going back to the Blair era. As I’ve reported before, the main graduate internship scheme for the civil service excluded middle-class white applicants until very recently. But BLM further deranged the mandarin mind.

At the entrance to the hangar-like Olympia conference centre is a huge, framed drawing, showing a design for an imagined triumphal arch. It depicts the intellectual, scientific and cultural contributions to the world made by Western civilisation, from the abolition of slavery to shipbuilding and the caravel. ‘Civilisation’ – and how to defend it – was the primary concern of those attending the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference this week. Over three days, 4,000 attendees pondered the ‘civilisational moment’ at which we stand. Down one fork in the road lies freedom, prosperity and flourishing. Down the other: stagnation, division and managed decline.

There were lots of contested takeaways from the Makerfield by-election this week. But the one thing that seems incontrovertible is that almost everyone wanted to get rid of Keir Starmer. Some of those people voted for Reform, more did so for Burnham – in large part because that was the quickest way to change PM. Starmer appears to have a deeply-held superiority complex – of morals as well as talents – that explains his habit of telling everyone else that they are irresponsible and incompetent This is effectively the end of Starmer’s premiership, with reports today that he may step down as soon as Monday. I have spoken previously of Sir Keir as a Beadlet anemone – a red jelly-like blob – that sticks stubbornly in place until forcibly dislodged.

Ten years ago, I found myself accompanying the then Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office to the Locarno room in the department's palatial HQ building. I was covering as one of Simon McDonald’s private secretaries for the week and he was on his way to address the ‘Summer Diversity Internship Programme’ cohort. I still recall looking at the assembled group of perhaps a 100 interns and barely being able to find a white face. That is the context of Kemi Badenoch's announcement yesterday that a future Tory government would finally ditch the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). For this the Conservative party leader should be commended. In so doing, the Tories have finally broken free of the ‘protected characteristics’ racket. And not a moment too soon.

Labour used to be able to rely on the support of union members. Not any longer. Reform and Labour are tied at 28 per cent among union members, according to polling by JL Partners. The survey reveals that Keir Starmer's party has suffered a 20 percentage point drop since 2024. Reform actually beat Labour among members of two of the biggest unions: Unite, by 36 per cent to 30 per cent, and the GMB, by 31 per cent to 22 per cent. Union leaders said it proves “the working class have abandoned” Starmer’s party.

On one level it’s not exactly surprising. The idea that large parts of the civil service would treat a Farage government with horror and seek to frustrate it is what many of Reform UK’s supporters have long suspected. But the sheer brazenness with which the Blob has now declared its hand is shocking and appalling in equal measure. Civil servants’ largest trade union, PCS, has been debating a motion to ‘counter a hostile Reform government’ with ‘sustained industrial action’. If the motion is approved, the union's ruling NEC would draw up a resistance strategy by the end of the year. In other words, they are considering going on strike if Farage wins the next election. PCS said the quiet bit out loud.

It’s fair to say the reset speech didn’t quite do the trick. As the number of Labour MPs calling on the Prime Minister to step down steadily grows and ministerial bag carriers begin to throw in the towel, it is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that Starmer is on borrowed time. Starmer looks determined to stay until forcibly dislodged, like a mutant Beadlet anemone. Indeed, as a red, jelly-like blob that sticks stubbornly in place, he may even find the comparison flattering He has only himself to blame. Before yesterday’s make-or-break address, Starmer did have an opportunity to rescue things – or at least to buy himself a significant period of reprieve. Lots of Labour MPs were waiting to see what he came up with in his big speech.

As the scale of Reform’s success in the local elections became clear, MP Danny Kruger noted, ‘What is happening is seismic…The public have decided they don't want the failed consensus of the last 25 years’. What is this ‘failed consensus’? Here is my take: what the voters have announced this week – in the most unambiguous terms since the Brexit vote – is that they’re calling time on the idea that we have to prioritise other people and other things over what is in the interests of ordinary working British people. The public will no longer allow a discredited, globalist notion of treating national self-interest as a second-order priority – which has found its most devoted proponent in Keir Starmer – to be foisted upon them.

There has been quite enough talk of process. In the past few days, we have heard more about vetting forms, meeting minutes and stultifyingly boring Whitehall bureaucracy than should fairly be inflicted upon the British public. Yesterday’s Foreign Affairs Committee examination of who said what, where and when ended more to Sir Olly Robbins’s advantage than to the Prime Minister’s. Indeed, somewhat remarkably, Robbins seems to have won most of SW1 around to his cause thanks to his accomplished responses to Emily Thornberry’s questions – who, it should be said, looked to be having the time of her life.