Unlike lying Starmer, Trump is tackling immigration and keeping his promises

Telegraph

13-06-2025

We've all said plenty about Donald Trump. Recently, I was asked to give him marks out of ten for his presidency so far. Reflecting on Ukraine, Greenland, Canada and tariffs, I couldn't go higher than three or four. But, say what you like about him, at least he's doing what he has said he would do.
America voted to end DEI excesses and the absurdity of biological males in female sports, and he's doing it. They voted to tackle illegal immigration, and he's acting on it in LA. They voted to put America first, and he is.
Now compare that with our leader: Keir Starmer. It's laughable, isn't it? He has U-turned and flip-flopped so much that I'm thoroughly car sick; there's no consistency in his beliefs and actions.
And I don't mean the silly, though revealing stuff, like pretending to be a 'friend' of Jezza and convincing gullible Labour members that he would be 'continuity Corbyn', and then expelling his predecessor as Labour leader from the party. Nor the annoying bits, like insisting on a longer lockdown but secretly meeting his voice coach.
I mean the crucial issues, like promising not to raise taxes, and pledging that council taxes and energy bills would go down, and failing to deliver on all these points. And also convincing the WASPI women, farmers and pensioners that he was on their side and then betraying all of them. His U-turn on the winter-fuel allowance was especially shocking.
But it's on immigration that we have the most cause for complaint. Starmer and co repeatedly insisted that Rwanda was a dud and that once the evil Tories were safely dispatched, Labour would simply 'smash the gangs'. What codswallop. Not only have they failed to do any such thing, but they have presided over a gigantic 40 per cent rise in crossings.
Why make a promise you know you can't keep? But that's like asking a scorpion why it stings. Yet, some folk are still convinced Starmer's 'a man of integrity'. A friend of mine uttered that very sentiment over lunch last week: for the first time in many moons, I was simply stunned into silence.
In any case, if Starmer got anywhere near his promise to tackle immigration his own party would tear itself apart. A sizeable chunk of them want open borders, and the more sensible ones still wouldn't support anything to disincentivise migrants. They see Starmer hobnobbing with Italy's Meloni and hear him, with his fingers crossed behind his back, talk about an 'island of strangers' and they immediately wonder if they've inadvertently elected Rupert Lowe.
Well, I'm increasingly of the view that the Prime Minister doesn't strongly believe in anything, as Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund argue in Get In: the inside story of Labour under Starmer.
But is it too much to ask for a Prime Minister with some principles? The guy in the White House, love him or not, has some – as he is proving right now in facing down the riots in America and standing up for his nation's borders. Sadly, we're going to have to wait a few more years for the possibility of of a leader with some backbone in Britain.