DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Hard man fantasy of a PM losing control

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Mad Frankie Fraser, Iron Mike Tyson, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. To this list of notorious tough guys, we must now add Keir Starmer – a streetfighter straight outta Reigate.
The genteel Surrey suburbs might not seem a natural breeding ground for bruisers, but friends say the PM's upbringing belies the inner beast.
'He's a hard bastard,' they tell the BBC 's Nick Robinson. Sir Keir humbly agrees. 'A hard enough bastard,' he says.
Really? Is he even the hardest member of Cabinet? It would be a brave punter who backed him over three rounds against Angela Rayner, or indeed in an alley fight with his gimlet-eyed enforcer Pat McFadden.
All this nonsense is, of course, designed to make Sir Keir out to be a strong and macho leader. In truth, it makes him look silly and desperate. On his first anniversary in power, he appears weaker and more out of touch than ever.
A survey this week shows one in three people who voted Labour 12 months ago now regret it. The big surprise is that it's only one in three.
The backbench rebellion which shredded his welfare reforms and had his Chancellor sobbing in the Commons was his greatest humiliation. But there have been many other errors, U-turns and betrayals of his manifesto promises.
No one voted for a £40 billion tax raid, the scrapping of winter fuel allowance, releasing thousands of dangerous prisoners early or the outrageous surrender of the Chagos Islands.
His boast that he would 'smash the gangs' trafficking migrants across the Channel has been an ignominious failure, the growth he promised has flatlined and borrowing has soared.
The only people to have really benefited from Starmer's first year are the public-sector unions, whose members have received bumper pay rises and a new workers' charter, which places a raft of stifling obligations on hard-pressed employers.
And what are the omens for Sir Keir's second year (assuming he survives it)? For anyone with savings, property, a pension fund, a small business, it threatens to be far worse than his first.
He has lost control of his parliamentary party and with it any chance of cutting back the ballooning state. Indeed, his newly empowered MPs, most of whom have never had a job outside politics, charities or the public sector, are likely to demand even higher public spending.
For example, they will no doubt push for lifting the two-child benefit cap, which would be a huge payday for those with large families but cost upwards of £3.5 billion – more money we don't have.
The only way to pay for this ever-growing financial black hole is for our lame-duck Chancellor to raise yet more tax. As usual, the burden will fall on the hard-pressed families of middle Britain.
It would be a betrayal of Labour's central manifesto promise but, as we have learned in this year, Sir Keir is not a man of principle. He may think of himself as a hard man, but he's deluding himself.
Every time there has been a genuinely tough decision to be made – on welfare, the grooming gangs inquiry, winter fuel allowance and much else – he's buckled.
His fellow tough guy Mike Tyson famously said: 'Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.' This is effectively what's happened to Sir Keir. If he ever had a plan, it's in tatters. And the country will pay the price.