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The collapse of British PM Keir Starmer · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, July two, twenty twenty five. The juries still
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: out in the Aaron Patterson triple murder case, and on
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Wednesday they'll begin a third day of deliberations. That's about
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the fatal lunch of beef Wellington's laced with deadly deathcap mushrooms.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Patterson is pleaded not guilty. As soon as there's a verdict,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: you'll be the first to know by joining our subscribers
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com do au. The crowd at
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Glastonbury's Music Festival has turned on Keir Starmer, and so
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is the rest of Britain apparently, as populists Nigel Farage
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: on the right and Jeremy Corbyn on the left steal
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the Labour PM's popularity today. What's gone wrong for Starmer
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and British Labor just a year after their Landslide election victory?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Before we begin, this episode is about British politics, so
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: there's a bit of swearing.
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  Speaker 2: Starmer is having a rough time of it lately. He's
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: fallen behind reform in the polls. Labor, of course, are
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: facing growing calls for regime change.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Now is has a.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Government less than year old allowed this revolt to happen?
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  Speaker 1: Are in House UK political expert is Richard Ferguson, who,
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  Speaker 1: as you're here, is a proud Scotsman. Richard kir Starmer
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: has only been Prime Minister for a year and the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: joy and exuberance of his election has been replaced by
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: chance of fuck Kirs Starmer at the Glastonbury Music Festival.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: What's gone wrong?
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  Speaker 3: I think Claire that Keer Starmer's first year has revealed
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: three huge problems with him. Number One, his election was
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: not a vote for Kerstarmer and Labor. It was a
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: vote against Richie Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: David Cameron and the Tories and everything that they had
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: stood for for the past fourteen years. Number Two, he
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: has proven to be an awful political manager and communicator.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: There were already doubts about his political management and communication
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  Speaker 3: early on when he'd become the leader of the Labor
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  Speaker 3: Party after the catastrophe of Jeremy corbyin but he'd managed
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: to quell some of that. But he's made some very
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: bad decisions since he's been in government. And free is
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: actually not in his control, which is that Britain is
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: just in a dark mood. Its productivity is disastrous. Brexit
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: has struggled in lots of he has a very very
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: shallow mandate and two he's just made some really bad mistakes.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It wasn't long after his election that he got himself
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: into controversy over accepting gifts from labor donors. And these
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: are things that Kiirs Starmer, who seems to be a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: pretty wealthy guy he's a QC, didn't seem to need
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: gifts of clothes for his wife, for example, hospitality accommodation.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Why would Kirstarmer have accepted things like that?
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, Claire.
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  Speaker 3: The acceptance of the gifts from the labor donor, Lord Dali,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: and the early chaos in his office where his chief
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: of staff who lasted a couple of weeks before she
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: was sacked, were huge problems for Kir Starmer because they
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: were huge dents. And the promise, the promise from Kir
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Starmer was I am the antithesis of Boris Johnson and Ledstross.
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  Speaker 3: I am not chaoti, I am organized, I am sober,
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  Speaker 3: I am serious.
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  Speaker 4: There is no drama with me.
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  Speaker 3: So when he had to sack a chief of staff
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: who wasn't getting on with anybody, that was a huge problem.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: And then two of the acceptance.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Of Lord Ali it was I am the former Director
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  Speaker 3: of Public Prosecutions in Britain, I am a human rights lawyer,
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  Speaker 3: I am integrity in human form, and immediately that was
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: wiped away after all the scandals that followed Boris Johnson
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: with the COVID parties and the women and all of that.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: So the only two things that appeared to make him authentic,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: considering he, you know, is considered in Britain to have
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: no political opinions of his own, was that he's a
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: man of integrity and he's a man of sobriety. And
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  Speaker 3: those were both wiped away very early on, and it's
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: been downhill ever since.
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  Speaker 5: I stop, mister speaker. The fact of the matter is this,
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  Speaker 5: they left for twenty.
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  Speaker 6: Two brilliant pound black hole from the OBR. Richard Hughes
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: is upsolutely clear.
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  Speaker 1: Keiths Stalmer's government came into power claiming that the Tories
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: had left them with the tens of billions of dollar
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  Speaker 1: black hole that they needed to plug, and one of
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  Speaker 1: the first attempts to do that was scrapping winter fuel
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  Speaker 1: payments for pensioners. That's a very dearly held value of
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  Speaker 1: many of Labour's own MPs that they help poor people
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: through winter with payments. The Government's going to be means
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: testing some of those. Where has that fuel issue ended up?
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  Speaker 1: And why has that been so hard for Keys Stalmer
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  Speaker 1: to navigate?
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  Speaker 3: The winter fuel payment was an absolutely disastrous moment for
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  Speaker 3: Keir Starmer and shored has lack of political notes, I
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  Speaker 3: think Claire. For years the Labor Party, including himself, had
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: been campaigning against Tory austerity and pairing back welfare budgets. No,
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  Speaker 3: this is not to see that welfare reform isn't important
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  Speaker 3: and often, as was the case with Hot Kidding for example,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: it's up to Labor governments to have the political capital
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  Speaker 3: to make tough economic reform and welfare reform that you
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  Speaker 3: know Tories wouldn't get away with. But he didn't have
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  Speaker 3: the sweeteners, He didn't have the message to explain why
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  Speaker 3: he was making this his first order of business, taking
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: winter few payments away from pensioners essentially, and it exposed
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  Speaker 3: him very very badly. It showed that he didn't understand
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  Speaker 3: his own MPs. He does not have a good management
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  Speaker 3: of his huge majority, and he didn't understand why he
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: was elected. He had been elected to not be a Tory,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: and he was acting like a Tory. But I think
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: in many ways, you know, his welfare reforms are exactly
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: what Britain needs. But he just falls into the trap
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  Speaker 3: again and again of appearing to go against the principles
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  Speaker 3: of his own party in a way that Tony Blair,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: despite the fact that people talk about Tony Blair as
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: a Tory in disguise and the Iraq War and all
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: this by Blair was very good at balancing the left
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: and the rate of the Labor Party.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: Keir Starmer is not good at that.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Kis Talma backflipped on those winter fuel payments and now
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: he's had to backflip again, this time under threat of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a revolt by his own Labor MPs. And this is
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: about bigger welfare reforms centering on something called the Personal
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Independence Payment or PIP. It's one of those great government acronyms,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: isn't it, Richard. But it's a bit like Australia's NDIS.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: It means a payment to help you if you are
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: disabled with the costs.
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: Of daily Life.
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  Speaker 1: The government announced dramatic cuts to that program, then, faced
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: with labor MP's horror, had to scale back those changes.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Was there a risk there or is there a risk
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that Kirstealmer could lose his position as Prime Minister.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: I think in the medium term, the beggar risk is
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Rachel Reeves the Chancellor losing her possession.
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  Speaker 6: I think the honorable gentlemen for that question that the
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: government carefully considered all of the policies in the autumn
• 8:06
  Speaker 6: budget in the context of the difficult fiscal inheritance that
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: we faced from the party opposite the decisions doing.
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  Speaker 3: She seems to be the one that Kier Starmer will
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: throw under the bus because it seems a lot of
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: labor and PS are still very unhappy with the concessions
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: that Kir Starmer has made. He could still lose this fight.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: From a policy perspective, Britain's budget and probably a lot
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: of disabled people in Britain would benefit from changes that
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: help them get into work that if they can work
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: and they want to work, will actually benefit them, and
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: kir Starmer has said this. The only problem is that
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: every time Kiir Starmer says something, he changes his mind
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  Speaker 3: once it gets politically.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: Difficult for him.
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  Speaker 3: He appears to have very little political backbone.
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  Speaker 1: One thing that he has been relatively staunchown is support
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: for Israel and critique of and Semitism, and that's brought
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: him into conflict with the hip hop trio Kneecap, which
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: during their headlining set at Glastonbury led a chant of
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: fuck Kirstarma. He had been critical of Neecap's inclusion, given
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that one of them is facing allegations which he denies,
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  Speaker 1: of supporting Hezblah. The crowd at Glastonbury have paid eight
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks for their tickets. They are wealthy, they're kind
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of progressive people who you would think are rusted on
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  Speaker 1: labor voters. Who are they going to vote for?
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  Speaker 4: Is it the Greens?
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  Speaker 1: Like it would be here?
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  Speaker 4: Well, this is the thing.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: The Glastonbury sets biggest problem is that they all love
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Jeremy Carbin. They all love Jeremy Corbyn. They still cannot
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: get over the fact that Jeremy Corburn lost twenty nineteen
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: saw badly. It was the Libra Party's worstter feat ever
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  Speaker 3: and they haven't quite gotten over that. So the beggest
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  Speaker 3: threat at the moment, Claire could be Jeremy Corbin.
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  Speaker 5: Quite simply, isn't the truth that this is a gunment
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  Speaker 5: that protects the super rich while the rest of us
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: pick up the bill through cuts, austerity, poverty, homelessness, low
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  Speaker 5: wages and slashing of local services all over the country.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: That is the reality of a Tory government Prime minister.
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  Speaker 3: He seems to be on his way to setting up
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: his own political party. He's very close to a group
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: of Muslim independents who won seats at the last election
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  Speaker 3: in some key labor areas, so it could be a
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: kind of a socialist version of reform that's a threat
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: to him. But the polls would say that in the
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: labor heartlands the threat is not Jeremy Corbyn, it is
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Nigel Farage, it is reform.
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  Speaker 6: This just seems to be a total lack of comprehension
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: on this panel, and indeed amongst this audience, even.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: By the left wing standards of the BBC, I mean,
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: that's not pretty point.
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  Speaker 3: Reform seems to have completely exterminated what life was left
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  Speaker 3: in the Tories and it's a huge threat to cure Starmer.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: So he will face a lot of pressure for within
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  Speaker 3: the Labor Party to take a more Jeremy KORbin esque
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  Speaker 3: approach on Palestine welfare.
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  Speaker 4: But the Post still say that the threat is Nigel Farage.
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  Speaker 1: So it's it's populism on the left, but really popularism
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  Speaker 1: on the right that is a massive threat to Key Stalma.
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  Speaker 4: Is that what he's saying?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, He is a technocrat in a country that is
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: not interested in technocracy anymore.
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  Speaker 4: It wants radical change.
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  Speaker 3: That is what Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbin in a
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: far less charismatic manner represent Do you know what clear
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: he really.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: Has the Joe Briden problem.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I think Kir Starmer, which is that you can be
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: a boring competent technocrat, that you have to be boring
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: and competent, and so far his government has failed it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Both.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Coming up, what are the lessons for Australia is labor
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: PM What does it tell us about Anthony Albanesi. There's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: criticism here of Anthony Albanesi from the left and from
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the right for not doing exactly what they want on
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: issues like, for example, Gaza, but generally he has been
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: extremely cautious on for example, issues like America. You know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: he's not doing what the Americans want. He's also not
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: doing exactly what the Chinese want on defense spending, for example,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: does the Starmer example explain Anthony Alberanesi's behavior.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I think that Kier Starmer as an example of Anthony
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Albanesi and what not to do. And an interview with
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: the Sunday Thames are Sister Masthead and Breton Kiir Starmer
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: said that one of the reasons he hasn't been able
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: to deal with these welfare reform rebellions among his own
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: party is because he's been so focused on foreign affairs.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Anthony Albinizi has been a lot more clever in making
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: sure that he is being seen at points to making
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: his base happy, going all in on climate change and
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: green infrastructure, paid parental leaves for perrannuation. The other thing
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: that I think distinguishes Albanzi and Starmar is that Starmar's
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: not a politician.
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  Speaker 4: Starmar was a lawyer. He acts like a lawyer, he
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: thinks like a lawyer at the end of the day. Clear.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how many barristers and doctors
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: you and I have seen come through Australian politics and
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: everybody thinks they'll be brilliant because they were a brilliant
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: barrister or doctor or whatever they did outside parliament and
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: then it turns out that they're a crummy politician. While
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: as Anthony Albanzi lives and breaths politics since the moment
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: he got out the womb, he is a politician first
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: and foremost. He knows how to work other politicians. Keir
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Starmer doesn't know how to do that. He treats everything
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: like a brief in a case in front of the
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: High Court. Sometimes you need to know how to schmooze
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: united to negotiate, and that's not care Starmer's strength, while
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: he is Anthony Albineasy strength.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: That was The Australian's Richard Ferguson. We've got all the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: best news, domestic and international, all the time at The
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au