The Greek prime minister’s party got the call that Rishi Sunak was cancelling his meeting with Kyriakos Mitsotakis when they were on the way to talks with Sir Keir Starmer in parliament.
It did not feel like a coincidence.
With the Conservatives trailing a disastrous average of 19 points behind Labour in the opinion polls, the thin-skinned British PM and his entourage are increasingly uptight about Starmer being treated as a prime minister in waiting – PMiW for short – especially by fellow VIPs.
It is fascinating to observe the shuffling in the corridors of power when an opponent starts to look like a credible challenger to the incumbent.
The PM cannot get away from them in a parliamentary democracy but how should they treat political rivals when they are on an upward arc? Ignore them? Snub them? Patronise them graciously?
None of these is a comfortable option. Not least because other foreign leaders and power brokers quite legitimately want to get to know someone who they anticipate could be taking over soon.
UK prime ministers behave no differently. Tony Blair made a point of meeting the conservative candidate Angela Merkel in the run-up to a German election, even though he was in Berlin on a final visit to the outgoing chancellor, and fellow social democrat, Gerhard Schroder.
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Sunak told MPs that he cancelled the invitation to the recently re-elected centre-right prime minister of a friendly European power “when it was clear that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss substantive issues but rather to grandstand” about the Parthenon Marbles, sold to the British Museum by Lord Elgin.
The official-looking meeting
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Far from impressing his audience, Sunak handed the Leader of the Opposition a grandstand opportunity to whack him with a severe PMQs spanking and to advertise his own credentials as a PMiW. Few would have noticed Starmer’s talks without the row.
Starmer wasted no time retorting that he had met “a fellow NATO member, an economic ally and one of our most important partners in tackling illegal immigration” and that “I discussed the economy, security and immigration with the Greek prime minister. I also told him we would not change the law regarding the marbles – it is not that difficult”.
Image: Sir Keir Starmer meets Kyriakos Mitsotakis
By agreement, Starmer’s meeting with Mitsotakis was an official-looking affair – complete with pool camera pictures. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and other officials joined them around a conference table.
Trying to look like a prime minister has meant Starmer frequently falls in line with government plans to avoid controversy. With the scent of power in the air, and the Corbynistas largely sidelined, Labour MPs are going along with this in public. By contrast the Conservatives seldom miss an opportunity to disagree among themselves.
A previous Labour PMiW, sitting on a similar poll lead, might find the situation familiar. Tony Blair notes in his memoirs: “[John] Major decided on a long campaign… the hope was I would trip up, I would suddenly lose my head, or by some trick of fate or fortune the mood of the public would change… instead and rather more predictably the Tories fell apart.
“Every time Major tried to get them on the front foot, someone in his ranks resigned, said something stupid or got caught in a scandal.”
Image: Rishi Sunak talking to former PM Tony Blair at the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai
Leaders in office are well aware they are conferring status when they meet PMiWs.
In the run-up to the 1987 General Election, Neil Kinnock secured an audience with President Reagan, coinciding with Margaret Thatcher’s high-profile trip to Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow.
Point one on the confidential State Department memo to the president spelt it out: “WHAT DOES KINNOCK WANT? * To meet with the President as Leader of the British Opposition and potential prime minister to demonstrate that he is a serious figure in international affairs.”
Not surprisingly, given Reagan’s fondness for Thatcher, that encounter did not go well – Labour felt slighted by White House briefings afterwards and retaliated by claiming Reagan was not on the ball.
Image: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had a close political relationship. Pic: AP
Presidents are also heads of state, which means they can rise above party politics when it suits them.
US presidents usually hold at least one meeting with British opposition leaders.
Party allegiances, between Conservatives and Republicans on the right or Labour and Democrats on the left, do not matter much.
Shortly after taking office in 2009, Barack Obama insisted on a half-hour meeting with David Cameron, then leader of the opposition, at the US ambassador’s residence, Winfield House.
Both sides fielded top teams of officials, including Tim Geithner, US treasury secretary and Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state.
The British monarch, Queen or King, may also facilitate contacts because opposition leaders are invited to state occasions.
Ever the iconoclast, on his state visit in 2019 Trump claimed he had turned down a request from then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “He wanted to meet today. I said no. He is somewhat of a negative force.”
Rachel Reeves and David Lammy have been on official trips to Washington DC, but Starmer has not yet had a formal meeting with Joe Biden even though this president has been to the UK five times, though never on a state visit.
Perhaps this is just as well given the polarisation of US politics with an election year approaching in both countries. For now, Sunak or Starmer are transparently eager not to be seen anywhere near Donald Trump.
Opposition ‘left out’
Number 10 and the Foreign Office are certainly not making it easy for Labour.
Image: Rishi Sunak during PMQS
Reportedly, the prime minister has not yet given the green light to the civil service to begin the briefings for the opposition, which are normal courtesy in the run-up to an election.
There was no invitation to a Labour minister to join in the recent international talks on AI security at Bletchley Park.
This week, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch posted on X from the government’s investor conference: “It was sad to hear from some investors yesterday that they’d move their HQs out of UK if Labour win.
“They tell me Labour relentlessly talk down the economy. Labour are like one of those candidates on The Apprentice who get fired early on. All talk no substance.”
She did not respond to challenges to name any such investors.
In the business community, a different rumour has been circulating; that attendees were quietly warned their invitations to the Hampton Court junket would be withdrawn if they committed prominently to one of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ over-subscribed events.
Labour says the chancellor pressured “a load of businesses” not to sign up to their “British Infrastructure Council”.
This autumn, French President Emmanuel Macron invited Starmer and colleagues to the Elysee for talks.
Rishi Sunak is Britain’s only Brexiteer prime minister by life-long conviction.
He is super sensitive about relations with Europe and turned down an EU invitation to hold regular EU-UK ministerial summits.
Barbs at PMQs
During PMQs he chided Starmer, with no justification beyond the Greek meeting, that “no one will be surprised that he is backing an EU country over Britain”.
Image: Keir Starmer during PMQS
Starmer stuttered back that the PM was digging himself into a deeper hole: “Let me get this straight: the prime minister is now saying that meeting the prime minister of Greece is somehow supporting the EU, instead of discussing serious issues”.
If the prime minister was trying to energise a group of voters, the pickings may be slim. Well over 60% now tell pollsters that Brexit has not gone well and would like better relations with the EU.
Is it important for a PMiW to mix with current leaders on equal terms? It is surely good preparation if they end up getting the job. For some voters, it will be reassuring that a new leader might already count for something in international negotiations.
Sunak and Starmer both attended the COP28 climate summit in the UAE this weekend, where the King made a speech.
The PM dashed in for less than 24 hours. Starmer stayed three days until Sunday – to fulfil requests for meetings from a number of heads of state and government, according to his staff.
Neither the Elgin Marbles nor, frankly, Greece, are at the top of the diplomatic agenda. The UK government and opposition agree they are not going to change the law so the sculptures can be handed over.
The difference is that Sunak has made a diplomatic incident of it and, unlike Starmer, he has also obstructed the attempts to broker a compromise by a former Conservative colleague George Osborne, who is now chairman of the British Museum.
Perhaps the most painful swipe at PMQs for the prime minister came when Starmer risked a question, with the merest hint of a sizeist jibe at Sunak’s diminutive stature: “Why such small politics, prime minister?”
Or was it more humiliating when the Speaker rose to quell rowdies drowning out the PM’s peroration that “the British people aren’t listening” – to Starmer, he meant?
Whether they are listening now or not, come the general election the wait will be over for Sunak and Starmer. It will be up to the British people to choose who they think looks like the next PM.
Wes Streeting has stepped up his war of words with junior doctors by telling Labour MPs that strikes would be “a gift to Nigel Farage”.
In a hard-hitting speech to the Parliamentary Labour Party, the health secretary claimed ministers were “in the fight for the survival of the NHS“.
And he said that if Labour failed in its fight, the Reform UK leader would campaign for the health service to be replaced by an insurance-style system.
Mr Streeting‘s tough warning to Labour MPs came ahead of a showdown with the British Medical Association (BMA) this week in which he will call on the doctors to call off the strikes.
At a meeting in parliament at which he received a warm reception from Labour MPs, Mr Streeting said: “The BMA’s threats are unnecessary, unreasonable, and unfair.
“More than that, these strikes would be a gift to Nigel Farage, just as we are beginning to cut waiting lists and get the NHS moving in the right direction.
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“What better recruitment agent could there be for his right-wing populist attacks on the very existence of a publicly funded, free at the point of need, universal health service? He is praying that we fail on the NHS.
“If Labour fail, he will point to that as proof that the NHS has failed and must now be replaced by an insurance-style system. So we are in the fight for the survival of the NHS, and it is a fight I have no intention of losing.”
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2:27
Why are junior doctors striking again?
The threatened strikes are in pursuit of a 29% pay rise that the BMA is demanding to replace what it claims is lost pay in recent years. The government has awarded a 5.4% pay increase this year after a 22% rise for the previous two years.
Earlier, appearing before the all-party health and social care committee of MPs, Mr Streeting said the strikes would be a “catastrophic mistake” and not telling employers about their intention to strike would be “shockingly irresponsible”.
He said BMA leaders seemed to be telling their members “not to inform their trusts or their employers if they’re going out on strike” and that he could not fathom “how any doctor in good conscience would make it harder for managers to make sure we have safe staffing levels”.
He said: “Going on strike having received a 28.9% pay increase is not only unreasonable and unnecessary, given the progress that we’ve been making on pay and other issues, it’s also self-defeating.”
He said he accepted doctors’ right to strike, but added: “The idea that doctors would go on strike without informing their employer, not allowing planning for safe staffing, I think, is unconscionable, and I would urge resident doctors who are taking part in strike actions to do the right thing.”
Mr Streeting warned the strikes would lead to cancellations and delays in patient treatment and spoke of a family member who was waiting for the “inevitable” phone call informing them that their procedure would be postponed.
“We can mitigate against the impact of strikes, and we will, but what we cannot do is promise that there will be no consequence and no delay, no further suffering, because there are lots of people whose procedures are scheduled over that weekend period and in the period subsequently, where the NHS has to recover from the industrial action, who will see their operations and appointments delayed,” he said.
“I have a relative in that position. My family are currently dreading what I fear is an inevitable phone call saying that there is going to be a delay to this procedure. And I just think this is an unconscionable thing to do to the public, not least given the 28.9% pay rise.”
Following a barnstorming performance in this year’s local elections, they are now the most successful political party on TikTok, engaging younger audiences.
Image: ‘They don’t exclude anyone, we’re all the same,’ says this Reform supporter
I was at the local elections launch for Reform in March, looking around for any young women to interview who had come to support the party at its most ambitious rally yet, and I was struggling.
A woman wearing a “let’s save Britain” hat walked by, and I asked her to help me.
“Now you say it, there are more men here,” she said. But she wasn’t worried, adding: “We’ll get the women in.”
And that probably best sums up Reform’s strategy.
When Nigel Farage threw his hat into the ring to become an MP for Reform, midway through the general election campaign, they weren’t really thinking about the diversity of their base.
As a result, they attracted a very specific politician. Fewer than 20% of general election candidates for Reform were women, and the five men elected were all white with a median age of 60.
Polling shows that best, too.
According to YouGov’s survey from June 2025, a year on from the election, young women are one of Reform UK’s weakest groups, with just 7% supporting Farage’s party – half the rate of men in the same age group. The highest support comes from older men, with a considerable amount of over-65s backing Reform – almost 40%.
But the party hoped to change all that at the local elections.
Image: Sarah Pochin became Reform UK’s first woman MP in May. Pic: PA
Time to go pro
It was the closing act of Reform’s September conference and Farage had his most serious rallying cry: it was time for the party to “professionalise”.
In an interview with me last year, Farage admitted “no vetting” had occurred for one of his new MPs, James McMurdock.
Only a couple of months after he arrived in parliament, it was revealed he had been jailed after being convicted of assaulting his then girlfriend in 2006 while drunk outside a nightclub.
McMurdock told me earlier this year: “I would like to do my best to do as little harm to everyone else and at the same time accept that I was a bad person for a moment back then. I’m doing my best to manage the fact that something really regrettable did happen.”
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0:40
‘He wasn’t vetted,’ says Farage of MP
Later, two women who worked for another of Reform’s original MPs, Rupert Lowe, gave “credible” evidence of bullying or harassment by him and his team, according to a report from a KC hired by the party.
Lowe denies all wrongdoing and says the claims were retaliation after he criticised Farage in an interview with the Daily Mail, describing his then leader’s style as “messianic”.
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1:04
Farage leading a ‘cult’ says ex-Reform MP
A breakthrough night
But these issues created an image problem and scuppered plans for getting women to join the party.
So, in the run-up to the local elections, big changes were made.
The first big opportunity presented itself when a by-election was called in Runcorn and Helsby.
The party put up Sarah Pochin as a candidate, and she won a nail-biting race by just six votes. Reform effectively doubled their vote share there compared to the general election – jumping to 38% – and brought its first female MP into parliament.
The council results that night were positive, too, with Reform taking control of 10 local authorities. They brought new recruits into the party – some of whom had never been involved in active politics.
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6:11
Inside Reform’s election success
‘The same vibes as Trump’
Catherine Becker is one of them and says motherhood, family, and community is at the heart of Reform’s offering. It’s attracted her to what she calls Reform’s “common sense” policies.
As Reform’s parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Highgate in last year’s general election, and now a councillor, she also taps into Reform’s strategy of hyper-localism – trying to get candidates to talk about local issues of crime, family, and law and order in the community above everything else.
Image: Catherine Becker believes Reform have widened their appeal by tapping into local issues
Jess Gill was your quintessential Labour voter: “I’m northern, I’m working class, I’m a woman, based on the current stereotype that would have been the party for me.”
But when Sir Keir Starmer knelt for Black Lives Matter, she said that was the end of her love affair with the party, and she switched.
“Women are fed up of men not being real men,” she says. “Starmer is a bit of a wimp, where Nigel Farage is a funny guy – he gives the same vibes as Trump in a way.”
Image: Jess Gill switched from Labour to Reform
‘Shy Reformers’
But most of Reform’s recruits seem to have defected from the Conservative Party, according to the data, and this is where the party sees real opportunity.
Anna McGovern was one of those defectors after the astonishing defeat of the Tories in the general election.
She thinks there may be “shy Reformers” – women who support the party but are unwilling to speak about it publicly.
“You don’t see many young women like myself who are publicly saying they support Reform,” she says.
“I think many people fear that if they publicly say they support Reform, what their friends might think about them. I’ve faced that before, where people have made assumptions of my beliefs because I’ve said I support Reform or more right-wing policies.”
Image: Anna McGovern defected to Reform from the Conservatives
But representation isn’t their entire strategy. Reform have pivoted to speaking about controversial topics – the sort they think the female voters they’re keen to attract may be particularly attuned to.
“Reform are speaking up for women on issues such as transgenderism, defining what a woman is,” McGovern says.
And since Reform’s original five MPs joined parliament, grooming gangs have been mentioned 159 times in the Commons – compared to the previous 13 years when it was mentioned 88 times, despite the scandal first coming to prominence back in 2011.
But the pitfall of that strategy is where it could risk alienating other communities. Pochin, Reform’s first and only female MP, used her first question in parliament to the prime minister to ask if he would ban the burka – something that isn’t Reform policy, but which she says was “punchy” to “get the attention to start the debate”.
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Reform UK MP pushes for burka ban
‘What politics is all about’
Alex Philips was the right-hand woman to Farage during the Brexit years. She’s still very close to senior officials in Reform and a party member, and tells me these issues present an opportunity.
“An issue in politics is a political opportunity and what democracy is for is actually putting a voice to a representation, to concerns of the public. That’s what politics is all about.”
Image: Alex Philips remains close to senior members of Reform UK
Luke Tryl is the executive director of the More In Common public opinion and polling firm, and says the shift since the local elections is targeted and effective.
Reform’s newer converts are much more likely to be female, as the party started to realise you can’t win a general election without getting the support of effectively half the electorate.
“When we speak to women, particularly older women in focus groups, there is a sense that women’s issues have been neglected by the traditional mainstream parties,” he says. “Particularly issues around women’s safety, and women’s concerns aren’t taken as seriously as they should be.
“If Reform could show it takes their concerns seriously, they may well consolidate their support.”
Image: Pollster Luke Tryl thinks Reform have become more targeted and effective
According to his focus groups, the party’s vote share among women aged 18 to 26 shot up in May – jumping from 12% to 21% after the local elections. But the gender divide in right-wing parties is still stark, Tryl says, and representation will remain an uphill battle for a party historically dogged by controversy and clashes.
A Reform UK spokesman told Sky News: “Reform is attracting support across all demographics.
“Our support with women has surged since the general election a year ago, in that time we have seen Sarah Pochin and Andrea Jenkyns elected in senior roles for the party.”