The Economist on Starmer

 "Sir Keir Starmer is a prisoner of the politics he pledged to end."

That's the conclusion of a piece in this week's Economist called "When Rigmarole becomes reality."

Here are a few extracts.

"Of all the distortions and deceits that Sir Keir Starmer deployed in order to reach Downing Street, one stands out.

"It was not the promise of free tuition fees offered to left-wing Labour members, ditched after the leadership contest was over. It was not the solemn pledge to forego tax rises on income, VAT or national insurance made at the last election, which will be smashed in the budget on November 26th."

"It was the promise of stability.    

Sir Keir promised to 'stop the chaos.'

Britain, he argued, was a prisoner of Westminster rigmarole."

"A Labour government would bring serenity, he pledged. 'We're all stuck in their psychodrama,' said Sir Keir. 'All being dragged down to their level.'

"Sir Keir was more right than he knew."

"On November 12th officials in Downing tret accused Wes Streeting, the health secretary, of planning to oust the Prime minister. Mr Streeting labelled his accusers conspiracy theorists who were trying to 'kneecap' him.

"In the space of 16 months Sir Keir's government has managed to accumulate a stench of death that it took his Conservative predecessors a good decade to build up."



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten years ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by th...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more