...Starmer postured against ‘populism’ in his speech – reducing the West-wide revolt against the political establishment to charlatans peddling ‘easy answers’. Later that day, a poll put Labour third behind right-wing populist upstarts Reform UK for the very first time.
He still doesn’t get it. Even with Donald Trump on his way back to the White House and fellow ‘centrists’ being toppled in Germany and France, Starmer seems to think that his bloodless managerialism is what people are thirsting for, even though the ‘adults in the room’ have brought nothing but economic and political turmoil.
The technocrats’ claim to wisdom and competence lies brutally exposed. We’re about to learn all over again that those who prize ‘delivery’ over ideology, who trust the views of ‘experts’ and the edicts of judges over those of voters, are often as useless as they are vision-less.
Where the technocrats are genuinely ambitious, it is in their appetite for economic immiseration. Starmer has watered down his insane decarbonisation pledge. He’s now gunning for 95 per cent ‘clean power’ by 2030, rather than the full 100. But no one sane thinks either target is doable. And trying – and failing – to hit it will still be immensely harmful for jobs and energy prices.
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