Latest news with #Starmerite
Daily Record
03-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Record
Renfrew's Jamie McGuire becomes first Labour councillor to defect to Reform
Nigel Farage's team confirmed the news in a social media post yesterday afternoon as the party leader joined campaigners in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. Renfrew councillor Jamie McGuire has defected to Reform UK. Nigel Farage's team confirmed the news in a social media post yesterday afternoon as the party leader joined campaigners in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. The representative for Renfrew North and Braehead is the first Labour councillor to defect to Reform in Scotland. In a statement on social media, Reform UK said: 'We are delighted to welcome former Scottish Labour councillor Jamie McGuire.' McGuire makes the move just one week after Reform UK was accused of 'blatant racism' towards his former party leader Anas Sarwar. The party released an edited video of Sarwar marking the 75th anniversary of Pakistan's independence in which they said he would 'prioritise the Pakistani community on Scotland". That was untrue. McGuire was previously viewed as a rising star in the Labour party and worked in the constituency office of Paisley MP Alison Taylor. The 25-year-old was formerly the chair of the Glasgow University Labour Club – and even arranged for a visit from left-wing hero Jeremy Corbyn in 2021. McGuire said in 2021: 'I've been asked a lot recently if I'm a Corbynite or Starmerite, a Blairite or Brownite. My answer is none of the above. I'm a Labourite who will campaign for every Labour leader because I know the difference Labour can make in power locally and nationally.' McGuire is the third Renfrewshire councillor to defect to Reform. Alec Leishman and John Gray crossed the aisle from the Conservatives, stating Reform was the only party that could bring about real change. Leishman, who represents Erskine and Inchinnan, defected in February this year, with Gray, who also represents Renfrew North and Braehead, following suit in March. Both have since refused to stand down and spark a by-election.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Britain has just 24 hours to teach Starmer a lesson he won't forget
We are only ten months into the Starmerite era, but this Government is already ready for the scrapheap. Rarely has a political project unravelled so rapidly, so comprehensively and with so little hope of redemption. Labour will stagger on, of course, for what feels like an eternity, inflicting yet more misery on our poor country, but the voters it has betrayed will never forgive it. Those who can must reward the Labour Party with the mother of all political shellackings at the English local elections on Thursday: this is the most over-rated Government of modern times, a noxious mix of incompetence, nastiness and untrustworthiness. Its second-rate apparatchiks are exacerbating every one of our pathologies, and vandalising the little that still works in Broken Britain: the Government's reverse Midas touch is something to behold. Sir Keir Starmer, it turns out, didn't have a plan. He is failing on almost every metric that matters, from the national debt to illegal immigration. He will dilute Brexit and ruin state education, two great legacies of the Tory years. He is wrong about almost everything, and right about close to nothing. His Government is soulless, obsessed with process, procedure and legalisms, congenitally unable to give the public the change it so craves. It lacks any kind of vision, other than reflexive cod-egalitarianism, progressivism and big statism, and is unable to comprehend the needs and desires of the aspirational working class and petite bourgeoisie. It is neither a Government of dreamers, nor of doers, and it cannot execute, lead or enthuse. It can break, but not build; it can redistribute, but not grow; it can regulate, but not liberate. It is cowardly, picking on defenceless private school children, while sucking up to its powerful union paymasters. Oozing negativity, it hides its fundamental vacuousness behind a veil of chippiness, class war and socialistic policies that are accelerating this country's ruination. Labour's social engineers don't understand that they exist to serve the people, and to help them improve their lives, not to endlessly constrain, challenge, impoverish, bully or brainwash them. The result is a toxic anti-consumerism, an inability to take immigration control seriously, an unserious approach to 'petty crime', an obsession with 'resetting' ties with the EU by selling out UK fisheries and regulatory independence, and a scandalous lack of interest in how only the free market can deliver rising living standards. The Government has already been knocked sideways by the vibe shift on trans issues and women's rights. Many of its MPs are furious, and cling to a doomed woke ideology. They may soon face further discombobulation over net zero, which is pushing the country towards blackouts and requires urgent moderation, and our membership of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prevents us from controlling our borders. Labour's electoral coalition is fraying, with its Left flank departing for the Greens or pro-Gaza Independents, its working class electorate to Reform and 'centrists' to the Lib Dems. Yet it is the fury of the apolitical wing of Middle England that should most terrify Starmer. Labour portrayed itself as reassuringly technocratic at the general election, but this was a false prospectus: it stands for the tax-consuming producer class, not for taxpayers and users of public services. It doesn't have the first idea how to deliver prosperity or growth, loathes and distrusts capitalism and is presiding over the greatest exodus of wealth creators since the brain drain of the 1970s. It will prove powerless to reform the public sector, to crack down on crime or to solve the housing crisis. Ministers' lack of managerial experience have ensured that the Blob has retained control. They are rightly scrapping NHS England, but the rest of that bureaucratic behemoth remains untouched. Throwing yet more non-existent billions at it won't fix waiting lists or endemic malpractice. The Home Office remains a disaster zone. Housebuilding and infrastructure may eventually tick up, but not by enough to compensate for extreme levels of immigration or to substantially rectify our deficit of roads, power plants, prisons or water reservoirs. Like socialists always do, this Labour government is running out of other people's money. Our public finances feel dangerously Latin American. The budget deficit rose to £151.9 billion in 2024-2025, the kind of shortfall that might be acceptable in wartime or in a pandemic but that is shockingly irresponsible today. Rachel Reeves has failed to tell the public the truth: we cannot afford such large annual increases in spending on benefits and the NHS when the economy is barely growing in per capita terms. What will happen if the world tips into a real recession, perhaps caused by Trumpian tariff idiocy, or if the UK suddenly needs to spend a lot more on the military? Would Labour need to call in the IMF, as in the 1970s? Taxes are already heading to a record high: what will Reeves target next? Will she freeze income tax thresholds again, dragging yet more people into higher tax bands? Will she eventually feel obliged to impose a catastrophic wealth tax, chasing away the last billionaires, entrepreneurs and former non-doms? Arthur Laffer, author of the eponymous curve, was right: above certain levels, higher tax can reduce receipts. It normally takes longer for Left-wing parties to rediscover this eternal truth, so perhaps we should be thankful that Reeves's gambit unravelled so quickly. She now appears to realise that energy costs inflated by net zero are accelerating the deindustrialisation of Britain, but remains in denial about her job-destroying National Insurance raid and addiction to cheap foreign labour. There is, of course, the odd policy that Labour has got right, including on Ukraine. To placate Donald Trump, Starmer is increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, paying for it by cutting foreign aid back to 0.3 per cent of GDP, a modest step in the right direction. Yet his overall record is catastrophically poor: this is the worst Government since the 1970s. If there is any justice in this world, Labour will suffer its greatest ever defeat in this week's elections. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Britain has just 24 hours to teach Starmer a lesson he won't forget
We are only ten months into the Starmerite era, but this Government is already ready for the scrapheap. Rarely has a political project unravelled so rapidly, so comprehensively and with so little hope of redemption. Labour will stagger on, of course, for what feels like an eternity, inflicting yet more misery on our poor country, but the voters it has betrayed will never forgive it. Those who can must reward the Labour Party with the mother of all political shellackings at the English local elections on Thursday: this is the most over-rated Government of modern times, a noxious mix of incompetence, nastiness and untrustworthiness. Its second-rate apparatchiks are exacerbating every one of our pathologies, and vandalising the little that still works in Broken Britain: the Government's reverse Midas touch is something to behold. Sir Keir Starmer, it turns out, didn't have a plan. He is failing on almost every metric that matters, from the national debt to illegal immigration. He will dilute Brexit and ruin state education, two great legacies of the Tory years. He is wrong about almost everything, and right about close to nothing. His Government is soulless, obsessed with process, procedure and legalisms, congenitally unable to give the public the change it so craves. It lacks any kind of vision, other than reflexive cod-egalitarianism, progressivism and big statism, and is unable to comprehend the needs and desires of the aspirational working class and petite bourgeoisie. It is neither a Government of dreamers, nor of doers, and it cannot execute, lead or enthuse. It can break, but not build; it can redistribute, but not grow; it can regulate, but not liberate. It is cowardly, picking on defenceless private school children, while sucking up to its powerful union paymasters. Oozing negativity, it hides its fundamental vacuousness behind a veil of chipiness, class war and socialistic policies that are accelerating this country's ruination. Labour's social engineers don't understand that they exist to serve the people, and to help them improve their lives, not to endlessly constrain, challenge, impoverish, bully or brainwash them. The result is a toxic anti-consumerism, an inability to take immigration control seriously, an unserious approach to 'petty crime', an obsession with 'resetting' ties with the EU by selling out UK fisheries and regulatory independence, and a scandalous lack of interest in how only the free market can deliver rising living standards. The Government has already been knocked sideways by the vibe shift on trans issues and women's rights. Many of its MPs are furious, and cling to a doomed woke ideology. They may soon face further discombobulation over net zero, which is pushing the country towards blackouts and requires urgent moderation, and our membership of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prevents us from controlling our borders. Labour's electoral coalition is fraying, with its Left flank departing for the Greens or pro-Gaza Independents, its working class electorate to Reform and 'centrists' to the Lib Dems. Yet it is the fury of the apolitical wing of Middle England that should most terrify Starmer. Labour portrayed itself as reassuringly technocratic at the general election, but this was a false prospectus: it stands for the tax-consuming producer class, not for taxpayers and users of public services. It doesn't have the first idea how to deliver prosperity or growth, loathes and distrusts capitalism and is presiding over the greatest exodus of wealth creators since the brain drain of the 1970s. It will prove powerless to reform the public sector, to crack down on crime or to solve the housing crisis. Ministers' lack of managerial experience have ensured that the Blob has retained control. They are rightly scrapping NHS England, but the rest of that bureaucratic behemoth remains untouched. Throwing yet more non-existent billions at it won't fix waiting lists or endemic malpractice. The Home Office remains a disaster zone. Housebuilding and infrastructure may eventually tick up, but not by enough to compensate for extreme levels of immigration or to substantially rectify our deficit of roads, power plants, prisons or water reservoirs. Like socialists always do, this Labour government is running out of other people's money. Our public finances feel dangerously Latin American. The budget deficit rose to £151.9 billion in 2024-2025, the kind of shortfall that might be acceptable in wartime or in a pandemic but that is shockingly irresponsible today. Rachel Reeves has failed to tell the public the truth: we cannot afford such large annual increases in spending on benefits and the NHS when the economy is barely growing in per capita terms. What will happen if the world tips into a real recession, perhaps caused by Trumpian tariff idiocy, or if the UK suddenly needs to spend a lot more on the military? Would Labour need to call in the IMF, as in the 1970s? Taxes are already heading to a record high: what will Reeves target next? Will she freeze income tax thresholds again, dragging yet more people into higher tax bands? Will she eventually feel obliged to impose a catastrophic wealth tax, chasing away the last billionaires, entrepreneurs and former non-doms? Arthur Laffer, author of the eponymous curve, was right: above certain levels, higher tax can reduce receipts. It normally takes longer for Left-wing parties to rediscover this eternal truth, so perhaps we should be thankful that Reeves's gambit unravelled so quickly. She now appears to realise that energy costs inflated by net zero are accelerating the deindustrialisation of Britain, but remains in denial about her job-destroying National Insurance raid and addiction to cheap foreign labour. There is, of course, the odd policy that Labour has got right, including on Ukraine. To placate Donald Trump, Starmer is increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, paying for it by cutting foreign aid back to 0.3 per cent of GDP, a modest step in the right direction.
The Independent
24-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Is Rachel Reeves' plan to slash civil service part of a ‘Trump lite' strategy by the Starmer government?
A drive to reduce the size and reach of the administrative state, abolish independent agencies, virtually end overseas aid – and cuts in social security to boost defence spending – are all very Trumpian. But, based on recent evidence, they're all very Starmerite, too. Could it be that the prime minister and his chancellor have been glancing across the Atlantic and getting inspired by what they see Donald Trump and Elon Musk getting up to? And, against what must be their natural social democratic instincts, are they being influenced (consciously or unconsciously) by the Zeitgeist blowing in from America? Is Starmer's administration now 'Trump-lite'? And does Rachel Reeves ' 'line-by-line' review of public spending amount to a clandestine attempt to turn HM Treasury into a British DOGE? In many ways, and uncomfortable as it may be for progressive types, the answer to that is clearly 'yes'. What drives Starmer and Reeves seems to be very similar to what is motivating Trump and Musk as well – a feeling that the country will go bust unless the size of the state, borrowing and taxation can be brought down as quickly as possible. Hence the twin-tracked approach – attacking institutions themselves as well as imposing austerity on departmental and agency budgets. It cannot be a coincidence that the cuts to UK overseas aid that prompted the resignation of the international development secretary, Annaliese Dodds, came only a couple of weeks after Musk cancelled USAID's contracts and ordered the cherry-picker to take the signage off the agency's Washington HQ. In America, Trump proudly abolished the Department of Education. In the UK, it was Wes Streeting who couldn't conceal a certain amount of grim satisfaction when he announced the end was nigh for NHS England. Who was it who spoke so contemptuously – indeed, so Trumpian in outlook – a few months ago about 'too many people in Whitehall who are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline'? Why, that quiet revolutionary Sir Keir Starmer, with that somewhat out-of-character snarl of disdain. Now, it's Reeves' turn to cut the civil service by 15 per cent – 10,000 more redundancies in the public sector, to add to the thousands of job losses at NHS England. Reeves has sacked one regulator for a lack of revolutionary zeal in the search for economic growth, has abolished the Payment Systems Regulator (not unlike the White House scrapping its consumer protection arm) and has ordered every government department and agency to come up with a plan to boost the economy – or else. She says she will wield an 'iron fist' in the detailed comprehensive spending review due to be completed in the summer. This week's Spring Statement will outline the full rigour of her demands – possibly involving areas such as education that have hitherto been ring-fenced. Liz Kendall's reforms – cuts – to sickness and disability benefits will not be the last such exercise to emerge from Whitehall this year. Indeed, given the boldness of the decisions to expand Heathrow and relax the planning rules, net zero targets may also be subject to some amendments, even if the formal pledge remains. By all accounts, Reeves and Kendall's plans for growth and the welfare state have caused some consternation around the cabinet table when they've been discussed, with Starmer allowing a free flow of the arguments. But in the end, figures such as Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband have had to grin and bear it under the discipline of collective responsibility – and only Dodds has quit in protest at this drift to Trumpism. The parliamentary 'rebellions' against what Starmer and Reeves have imposed – usually going way beyond what the manifesto and election campaign heralded – have been muted. For the time being, at least, Starmer has as tight a grip on his parliamentary party as Trump does on his nominal Republican colleagues in Congress. How much further will this strange Trumpian transformation of Starmer go? One dreads to think. The most obvious next move, if this baleful trend is to accelerate, would have to be a drive to 'secure the border', just as Trump has with Mexico (or claimed to). There are even rumours that Starmer, a dedicated human rights lawyer for much of his adult life, is looking for ways to soften the 'right to family life' clause in the European Convention of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. He would never withdraw from the convention, one hopes, but you get the impression that he and his close adviser, Morgan McSweeney, would like to find a way to avoid embarrassing tabloid headlines, albeit mythical, about criminals being allowed to stay in the UK because their child likes a certain kind of chicken nuggets or the romance scam conman who can't be deported because his wife and children use the NHS. As with his frustrations on the environmental front about 'bat tunnels' and 'jumping spiders' stopping infrastructure investment, Starmer and his team seem to be developing an almost Trump-like taste for populism. Nowhere would this be implemented more dramatically than in the irregular crossings in the English Channel. Pushed along, in part, by a fear of the electoral damage Nigel Farage will inflict on their party, it seems Labour has no option but to, frankly, pander to the hard right (or the legitimate concerns of traditional Labour voters, according to your point of view). Starmer and Trump could not be more different in temperament and background, yet the policy parallels are growing more compelling – and the evidence seems to be that the pair have developed an improbably warm personal relationship. Could the socialist son of a Surrey toolmaker possibly have anything in common with the billionaire son of a New York property developer? A former director of public prosecutions and a convicted felon? The woke believer in multiculturalism finding himself dealing with the man who has extirpated DEI from the American government? It seems so. Starmer's background in human rights and as a 'liberal' (as Trump labels him) doesn't seem to bother the present White House, more impressed by the size of Labour's win in the general election (albeit the result in the Commons was overly flattering) and Starmer's deferential posture. Maybe Starmer, an archetypal civil servant manqué of a prime minister in the mould of a Ted Heath or Theresa May, also feels something in his loins when he witnesses the speed and audacity of what his counterpart in Washington gets up to. The prime minister has so far studiously avoided criticising Trump's tariffs in UK exports or his peace plans, such as they are, for Ukraine and the Middle East – and that's the kind of loyalty Trump expects. Starmer is keeping him onside. The oddest of odd couples may fall out in due course – Trump usually does with everyone – and the presently quiescent Labour Party may at some point cry 'enough' as the grinding cuts in public spending and services proceed. But, for now, we are seeing Starmer transform into a sort of were-Trump – and it's frightening.
