It seems like Karl Rove, who was a special advisor to President George W Bush, was described by Republican insiders as Bush’s Brains. Morgan McSweeney has taken on the very same role for Keir Starmer. Because no one other than McSweeney would have approved the use of the phrase “Island of Strangers” mimicking Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in which he warned of a future where” white people found themselves made strangers in their own country”. However, it also shows that Starmer’s complicity in the decision to use the phrase. Starmer and his closest advisor now believe that throwing “Red Meat “to the electorate in the 89 seats in which Reform came second to Labour is a good political strategy. The Prime Minister also, in his speech, said that the immigration system is contributing to pulling our country apart; if this and the above are not echoing Powell, you are not listening. The dogs in the street know that we need to have a serious discussion around the issue of legal migration, so let us have it, without the red meat. Migration is not the fault of migrants; they have legally come here to work and support vital services such as social care and the NHS. This is the failure of the political class to develop a credible immigration strategy. This is the consequence of the unmanaged embrace of globalisation, allowing the developed economies to employ hardworking and highly educated migrants at a lower cost. If we think care workers are worth £12.00 per hour, well, good luck in reducing immigration. We also employ highly educated migrants to fill the gaps in our engineering, computer science and intellectual infrastructure. This is a government that, to date, has failed to understand and plan for the rapidly changing, diverse economic and social landscape in which we all reside. On illegal migration, his rhetoric, like “Smash the gangs,” has no more credibility than Sunak’s “Stop the boats.” He has also not learned from Theresa May’s “hostile environment” comment, which, in fairness to her, she has regretted. He went off to Albania to do his version of Rwanda and was rebuffed. On top of that, he took only one news organisation on the trip, though calling it a news organisation is a stretch, which is GB News. Even the eminent Lord Dubbs has said he does not recognise the Keir Starmer he once knew.
He also thought cutting the winter fuel allowance in full, when a pensioner’s income reached one penny over £12500, was a good idea, when it should have been tapered. In an era when food security is vital, he fights real farmers on inheritance tax but does not go after the super-rich who use the acquisition of farmland as a tax avoidance strategy. He waxes lyrically about child poverty but refuses to reverse the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, which, if reversed, would be the single biggest change in policy that would reduce child poverty. Gordon Brown, in a New Statesman article, described child poverty as a scar on our national conscious, and the biggest cause of social division in Britain today. Another poll found that 75% of those polled believed child poverty was morally wrong. He was given the job as leader of the Labour Party because of Corbyn’s utopian strategy, which no one believed, and then went on to become Prime Minister on the basis that what went before was awful, Sunak, Boris, Liz and co, surely, he couldn’t do any worse. All highlighted by a thin manifesto, poor tax proposals and that his dad was a toolmaker. Let us not forget his overuse of the term working people, denying there is a working class. He is constantly surrounded by the Union Jacks and uses the term “National Interest “as someone who has Tourette’s. If out reforming Reform is the strategy, Starmer and the Labour Party are “doomed,” because you cannot out bullshit a party built on bullshit, as confirmed by Lee Anderson on Politics Live and the new Reform MP Sarah Pochin on Newsnight.
He is going to cut back on foreign students in the middle of a funding crisis in higher education. Foreign students generate about £12.0 billion per annum for universities. According to the Commons Library, many universities rely on this income to survive. Universities UK also make the point that foreign students’ economic impact is around £40 billion per year. This seems like another red meat announcement. What is needed is a complete review of higher education, its costs, and role in delivering the knowledge and skill sets required by our young people in the aforementioned rapidly changing, diverse economic and social landscape.
On tax, he refused to tax wealth, which, according to LSE, at a rate of 1% for wealth at £2.0 million and above, would generate £80.0 billion over 5 years. In addition, a move to equalising capital gains and income tax, which in effect would classify all you earn as income. Doing this and applying national insurance to investment income could raise an additional £46.0 billion per annum. Instead, Rachel chose to tax jobs and screw poor pensioners on winter fuel but did not have the metaphoric balls to deal with the triple lock, amend private pensions provisions, increase vat on cars above £80,000 , increase the digital services tax and a tax on online gaming wouldn’t go amiss. He is shutting down NHS England but fails to lay out detailed reforms to the NHS and is in denial about the crisis in the service. The King’s Fund has estimated that the NHS will be £7.0 billion over budget in 25/26. The reality is that if we, the electorate, want to maintain a free at the point of need healthcare system at a Scandinavian quality, we need to pay for it, and that means more taxes.
On the international front he is sucking up to the Donald unlike Carney who is standing up to him. The new deal on trade, which he describes as a good deal, leaves our tariffs 4 times higher than before Jan 20th, except for cars and steel, though car exports to the US are limited to 100,000 units. Being first does not look like a victory but capitulation. He is right to repair the damage done to relations with the EU by Boris’s botched deal and the trade barriers that have seen exports of goods to the EU fall from £220 billion in 2017 to £177 billion in 2024. This may not be huge in terms of growth in the short run, but it acknowledges that the EU accounts for 42% of UK exports. Irrespective of the continuing stupid criticism coming from Badenoch about the new arrangements with the EU, this is an essential first step. As Andrew Marr wrote in the New Statesman, this change of heart is not about shared values or appetites but about the man on the Hill, the man in the Kremlin, our stuttering economy, and our shared fears. Starmer continues to support Ukraine with the same enthusiasm as Boris. He, along with Macron, are at the forefront of underpinning European support for Zelensky. On the other hand, like Scrooge, he has cut foreign aid by billions, to now just 0.3% of GDP, giving the whiff of UK First. He seemingly does not care or understand the intrinsic link between our future and the global south, conveniently ignoring the relationship between poverty, conflict, climate change and migration. On Gaza, in recent months, he has been silent, not condemning the assassination of 15 members of an ambulance crew by the IDF. He has said nothing in the media condemning Israel’s continuing breach of international law and war crimes. Prime Minister, just call a spade a spade, it’s GENOCIDE. After Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire, the IDF have killed hundreds more Gazans, including dozens of more children, and they continue to use starvation and the destruction of hospitals as a legitimate tactic of war. On the same issue, the former EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, launched a scathing attack on Netanyahu’s government, accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza and “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War in order to create a splendid holiday destination”. Mr Prime Minister, 30,000 women and children have been murdered in Gaza. Lead the way and stop this brutal ethnic cleansing. A first step would be to withdraw our ambassador from Israel, stop all arms shipments and give your unequivocal support to the decisions of the ICJ.
He has been triggered to act by condemning Israel’s recent actions in Gaza after seeing the plight of starving children. Sending a few aid trucks to feed a few starving children with a few calories, just to be bombed later, is not acceptable; it’s time to show some political and humanitarian balls and punish Israel for its genocidal behaviour. It is simple, stop all trade with Israel, as Israeli exports to both the EU and the UK account for over 30% of its global exports. Gaza is no longer a humanitarian crisis that he can continue to prevaricate on, irrespective of who you are married to.
Empathy is being poured out over the arson attack on his now rented home in London, and a fire related to another property that was once owned by him. This sort of political violence is not acceptable in our democracy. However, his record to date is clear, he is the same man who took free suits from a donor and then went on to cut winter fuel allowance to pensioners with income a penny over £12500 per annum, cut foreign aid and refused to clearly condemn and take steps to stop the genocide in Gaza and sucks up to the trainee authoritarian in Washington. We get the fact that the Tories left a mess, both in the economy and public services. My last bit of advice, lay out and explain (not as if you are still the Director of Public Prosecutions) to the electorate a clear and honest road map and vision for our collective futures. Finally, do not embrace the language of Reform or its predecessors, but distance yourself from them, embrace Labour values and make social cohesion your underlying principle; this is the route to a second term.
I will finish with a few lines from Bob Dylan’s, Blowin’ in the Wind
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Breaking News: Under severe pressure from his backbenchers, Starmer does a U-turn on winter fuel allowance. Finally, another bit of advice: sack Reeves, she has no political antennae, and she is certainly no Joseph Stiglitz, though get her to read his book The Road to Freedom.
Suneil Sharma
24th May 2025
The Gob 
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