For a PM who promised ‘change’, how much of what Sir Keir Starmer promised was rhetoric?

Published

1 month ago

September 26, 2024

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Sir Keir Starmer campaigned in the general election about being a politician who would do things differently and lead a government of service.

His was a message of change not just about how he would run the country, but also about how he would lead the government change. It was billed not just as a change of power from one party to another but as a change of culture too.

If the polls are anything to go by, that message has been blunted and his reputation tarnished in the early days of his government over the row around Sir Keir’s freebies. In the last parliament, Sir Keir claimed more freebies – £107,145 – than any other politician.

Politics latest: Tetchy PM hits back at donation questions

The handouts ranged from clothing (£16,200) to football freebies (more than £35,000), concert tickets, rugby matches and the races (£17,000).

He has also just declared £20,000 in accommodation during the election, borrowing a rich donor’s multi-million penthouse so his son could study for his GCSEs away from the media scrums around the Starmer’s family home in Kentish Town in London.

New polling put out by YouGov on Wednesday found that three out of four people thought donations of concert tickets and money for clothes to politicians should be banned.

Meanwhile, in the early days of the government, the PM’s personal popularity ratings have fallen sharply.

A fresh survey by Opinium reveals that the prime minister’s approval rating has dropped 45 points to -26 since he became the country’s leader. It now makes him – by a point – less popular than his predecessor Rishi Sunak.

There are undoubtedly a number of factors playing into Sir Keir’s drop in popularity – not least his decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.

But talk to colleagues around him, and the row over freebies has caused some consternation. At best, it has pulled the government off message and on to the back foot – at worst, it has become a personal problem for a prime minister who promised to do things differently, and now is having the charge levelled against him that he’s like those who went before, taking freebies from rich friends.

Sir Keir might find that uncomfortable, or vehemently disagree with it, but can he understand that while he is following all the rules, the perception, the optics of claiming all these freebies while asking people to take the pain of difficult choices is an issue for him and his government?

In our interview, it was evident that if the prime minister saw the tensions between his promises about how he would conduct politics and claiming sizeable freebies, he did not want to acknowledge that in an interview that was far tenser than I had anticipated and in which, at times, he seemed palpably angry.

The prime minister made the point that the claims were in the rules and that “behind some of those numbers, there is a human story”.

He explained how he has to now sit in corporate hospitality when he watches his beloved Arsenal with his son because of security reasons and does not want to cost the taxpayer more money by sitting in his usual seat in the stands.

And when it comes to the £20,000 accommodation he claimed in the election, the prime minister has a very clear answer: he did it to protect his son, who was studying for his GCSEs at the time and needed a peaceful place to study where he did not have to run the gauntlet of journalists hanging outside the house.

Many of you will think these are reasonable explanations, some of you will not.

But what is incontrovertible is the volume of freebies Sir Keir has claimed.

When I asked him about clothing, he said he would no longer accept donations. When I asked him about concert tickets – Taylor Swift, Adele, Coldplay – he indicated he might still go, saying it was a matter of judgement.

In short, the prime minister point-blank refused to engage in questions around the optics of his claims and how they might undermine his political messaging and personal reputation with the public.

Does it matter? One of the charges brought against Sir Keir during the election by political opponents was he was a politician who said one thing and did another.

The Conservatives campaigned hard on the notion that he would say no tax rises for working people and then put up taxes – we will see what he does in the budget.

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And there were those on his own side who lost trust in him after he campaigned on a left-wing agenda to become leader only to move away from that once he had won.

Whether he likes it or not, thinks it’s fair or not, will admit it or not, the row over freebies has raised questions about how much of that “change” was rhetoric and how much is real?

Politics

Crypto volatility may spike if US election is ‘too close to call’ —FalconX

Published

5 hours ago

November 2, 2024

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Crypto volatility may spike if US election is ‘too close to call’ —FalconX

An analyst warns that “volatility” could emerge if the US election results are close, but traders will be relieved once it’s over, giving the market “firmer ground.”

Politics

Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch to be crowned Tory leader today – but whoever wins contest faces daunting task

Published

6 hours ago

November 2, 2024

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Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch to be crowned Tory leader today - but whoever wins contest faces daunting task

The next leader of the Conservative party will be announced today, following a run-off between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.

The winner will replace Rishi Sunak as the leader of the opposition, after he led the party to a crushing election defeat in July, losing almost two thirds of its MPs.

His successor faces the daunting task of rebuilding the Tory party after years of division, scandal and economic turbulence, which saw Labour eject them from power by a landslide.

Politics latest: Budget given ‘clean bill of health’

Voting by tens of thousands of party members, who need to have joined at least 90 days ago, closed on Thursday. Both candidates have claimed the result will be close.

The Conservatives do not disclose how many members the party has, but the figure was about 172,000 in 2022, and research suggests they are disproportionately affluent, older white men.

Both candidates are seen as on the party’s right wing. Kemi Badenoch, 44, is the former trade secretary, who was born in London to middle-class Nigerian parents but spent most of her childhood in Lagos.

After moving back to the UK aged 16, she stayed with a family friend while taking her A-levels, and has spoken of her time working at McDonald’s as a teenager.

Having studied computer science at Sussex University, she then worked as a software engineer before entering London politics and becoming MP for Saffron Walden in Essex in 2017.

Ms Badenoch prides herself on being outspoken and has said the Conservatives lost because they “talked right and governed left”. But her critics paint her as abrasive and prone to misspeaking.

At the Conservative Party conference, a crucial staging post in the contest, she began her speech which followed three other male candidates by saying: “Nice speeches, boys, but I think you all know I’m the one everyone’s been waiting for.”

Her rival Robert Jenrick, 42, has been on a political journey. Elected as a Cameroon Conservative in 2014, he was one of the rising star ministers who swung behind Boris Johnson as prime minister and was later a vocal supporter of Rishi Sunak.

But he resigned as immigration minister in December 2023, claiming Sunak’s government was breaking its promises to cut immigration.

The MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire says he had a “working-class” upbringing in Wolverhampton. He read history at Cambridge University and worked at Christie’s auctioneers before winning a by-election.

After a long ministerial career where he was seen as mild-mannered, he is said to have been “radicalised” by his time at the Home Office and has focused his campaign on a promise to slash immigration and leave the European Convention on Human Rights to “stand for our nation and our culture, our identity and our way of life”.

He has put forward more policies than his rival, but attracted criticism for some of his claims – including that Britain’s former colonies owe the Empire a “debt of gratitude”.

A survey of party members by the website Conservative Home last week put Kemi Badenoch in the lead by 55 points to Mr Jenrick’s 31 with polls still open.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary and seen as a more centrist candidate was knocked out of the race last month. One of his supporters, the Conservative peer and former Scotland leader Ruth Davidson, has predicted neither Mr Jenrick nor Ms Badenoch will stay as leader until the next general election.

She told the Sky News Electoral Dysfunction podcast: “I’ve now voted for Robert Jenrick, who I don’t think will win. I struggle to believe that the person that’s the next leader of the Tory party is going to take us into the next election in five years’ time and I struggle to believe that they’re going to leave the leadership at a time of their own choosing.”

Henry Hill, deputy editor of ConHome, said the contest which Tory officials decided would take almost three months, has not led to enough scrutiny – because the MP rounds of voting took so long.

“We know much less [about them] than I think we should”, he said. “The problem with this contest is the party decided to go really long, but at the same time, they confined the membership vote – with just the final two – to just three weeks, and ballots dropped halfway through that process.

“We had months and months with loads of candidates in the race, but also that was the MP rounds and you’d think the MPs will have a chance to get to know these people already. For the actual choice the members are going to be making, there has been barely any time to scrutinise that.

He added: “I think the party remembers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak taking weeks to take lumps out of each other in 2022 and wanted to avoid that. But it means the two campaigns haven’t really been attacking each other and that tends to be how you expose people’s weaknesses.”

After 14 years in government under five prime ministers, it is not since David Cameron in 2005 that the party has elected a leader to go into opposition – with a long road until the next general election.

Veteran ex-MP Graham Brady, who served as chair of the backbench 1922 committee, told Sky News that the position was more hopeful than after the 1997 landslide.

He said: “The biggest challenge for a leader of the opposition in these circumstances is just to be heard, to be noticed. I came into the House of Commons in 1997 at the time of that huge Blair landslide.

“We worked very, very hard in opposition during that parliament, and at the next general election [in 2001], we made a net gain of one seat.

“Now, there is a huge difference between now and 1997. The Blair government remained very popular and Tony Blair personally remained very popular through that whole parliament and beyond. And in 100 days or so, Keir Starmer has already fallen way behind.

“So I think we’ve got a great opportunity. I don’t think we’re up against an insuperable challenge, but it’s a big challenge.”

Kate Fall, now Baroness Fall, worked with Lord Cameron in opposition and later in Downing Street when he was prime minister in the coalition government. She said the next leader needed to keep the party “united and disciplined”.

“The first thing is to think about why we lost. The second thing is what do we have to say? Then they need to be agile, they need to be reactive, but pick their fight, not fight over everything. They also need to get out and about,” she said.

Lord Cameron travelled around the country holding question and answer sessions called Cameron Direct. “When you’re prime minister, you can’t do that as much as you like. But as leader of the opposition you can get out, talk to people, we thought it was very trendy to have a podcast and so on.”

She says this week’s budget gives the next leader “an ideological divide” to get into, but warns that the next leader must not risk alienating former Tories who switched to Labour and the Lib Dems.

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The leader of the opposition will cut their teeth at weekly Prime Minister’s Questions sessions opposite Sir Keir Starmer and respond to set piece events such as the budget.

They will need to get the party’s campaign machine ready for the local elections in England in May 2025, Scottish elections in 2026 and the next general election expected in 2029.

Politics

Coinbase finds over ’20 examples’ of FDIC telling banks to avoid crypto

Published

7 hours ago

November 2, 2024

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<div>Coinbase finds over '20 examples' of FDIC telling banks to avoid crypto</div>

Coinbase’s chief legal officer declares that the “contents are a shameful example of a government agency trying to cut off financial access to law-abiding American companies.”