As Sir Keir Starmer’s government enters its second year, a new analysis has revealed what many have suspected all along: the Prime Minister is in a perpetual state of travel, having spent 13 of his first 100 days in office abroad. This revelation, brought to light by the Mail on Sunday, has sent shockwaves through a political landscape that was, for a fleeting moment, focused on something other than which foreign capital our leader was visiting. Critics within his own Cabinet are reportedly raising eyebrows, a feat of physical dexterity not seen since they were trying to figure out if they should stand up or sit down during a recent policy announcement. It seems the man is not so much leading the country as he is leading a global tour of handshakes and awkward photo opportunities.
The satirical podcast “Starmer v Starmer” has taken on a whole new meaning. With his feet on a different continent every other week, it’s becoming a case of ‘Starmer v jet lag’, a battle he appears to be losing judging by his increasingly bewildered expressions. One can only imagine the conversations at Downing Street: “Where’s the Prime Minister?” “Oh, he’s in Berlin.” “Berlin? I thought he was in Washington to discuss the new trade deal on, what was it, sausages?” The ‘sausage’ gaffe, a comedic masterpiece from his time in opposition, is now a distant memory, replaced by the more profound and existential question of whether he’s actually in the country to make a decision at all.
His constant motion, it seems, is a finely tuned strategy to avoid the one thing he dreads most: staying still long enough to commit to a single policy. Why tackle the NHS backlog when you can be a key player in Ukraine peace talks? Why fix the economy when you can be forging new “security agreements” with the EU? The indecision is so complete that his policy pronouncements from earlier in the year, such as abolishing NHS England or raising immigration thresholds, now feel like fleeting fever dreams from a time before his passport became his primary policy document. In the end, his political journey isn’t a straight line, but a manic, zig-zagging itinerary designed to keep everyone, including himself, guessing.
Kierless Whispers 