Yes I am a bit behind but that's what happens when you're a working day behind, although Twitter helps. Kier Starmer could have made it, he could have built on the [nauseatingly] choreographed 'hit the ground running' start to his PM-ship but he blew it big time; in the most obvious and predicted way (by just about everyone with their 'buzz word bingo card' handy, I was correct on a couple of the main points).
It is exactly as Frank Haviland says in his latest article on The New Conservative: Starmer Picks a Side.
"...Starmer who has painted himself as the leader for our times would surely have brought his finest pallette and brush to the lectern? Certainly, he did. And no doubt for the faithful, his painting by numbers routine did the job."
For those of us on the other side of the political divide however – the tens of millions of small ‘c’ conservative, closed-borders fetishist, ‘far-right’ thugs, with ridiculous aspirations that our daughters might be permitted to live – his performance was even worse than expected. [my emphasis]
"Rather than oratory for the ages, I’d call this dereliction of duty – a textbook display of obfuscation, memorable only for what was not said, rather than that which was. There was no mention of ‘children’, ‘protection’, ‘border security’, ‘failed multiculturalism’ or ‘integration’. The idea that this speech will install calm, reassure the public, or prevent future atrocities is about as close to zero as you can get. This was about Starmer doing what he does best: reassuring those who vote the right way, and blaming the response to crime, rather than the crime itself."And like Frank writes to summarise, many I predicted that 'Labour’s honeymoon would be short-lived' – "it’s now officially over." Spot on.
Silkie Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch said:
"It’s deeply worrying that the Prime Minister totally failed to address the causes of the violent, racist thuggery we have witnessed in Britain this week, let alone his failure to even address the causes of the heinous knife crime that has cruelly taken so many lives. To promise the country ineffective AI surveillance in these circumstances was frankly tone deaf and will give the public absolutely no confidence that this government has the competence or conviction to get tough on the causes of these crimes and protect the public."
