(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/wMNh16p2Xv4)
Who would have thought it? Just five months after his historic win the Prime Minister’s poll ratings are the floor. His only consolation being that the Tory leader’s are just as bad. Bah humbug Crimble for both of them then. But Sir Keir Starmer’s anything but sorry.
His Edith Piaf moment came at the end of a grilling by senior MPs last week when he was pressed on whether he had any regrets about stuff he’d done.
His answer? No. No regrets.
But to millions of people up against soaring water bills, the cost of everything else creeping up as well and waiting forever for hospital treatment that’s not good enough.
To which Starmer’s answer is a reminder of how many people got it wrong about the war in 1914. It won’t all be over by Christmas.
He’s absolutely right in saying that when he took over in July he plunged into a sea of troubles. And that he had no choice but to take up arms against them.
But, to complete the quote from Hamlet, can he, by opposing, end them? At least he’s got four-and-a-half years to give it a go. Looks like he’ll need them too.
Having bet the farm on growing the economy, last week’s warning from the Bank of England boss that it’s stagnating is hardly the best prezzie ever.
The man’s point, however, was that businesses hit back at the budget by upping prices and cutting jobs.
Little wonder there’s no money in the pot to pay off the so-called Waspi women, (short for Women Against State Pension Inequality), who feel cheated by everyone.
An official report earlier this year confirmed that they weren’t properly kept in the loop about the rise in their state pension age from sixty to sixty-five.
And, because this meant an awful lot of them missed out, this same report stated that they deserved compensation. Of anything between one and three grand each.
The problem being for the government that there are so many of them that the total bill would add up to at least ten billion, if not a whole lot more.
No great surprise then, when pretty much everything else is on its uppers too, that the government said sorry guys, no dice.
No great surprise either that to these furious women of a certain age this was yet another kick in the teeth – after they mostly missed out on the winter fuel allowance too.
Lest anyone be in any doubt about that bit, btw, a number one in the Official Singles Downloads Chart is a song (that the BBC refuses to play) bashing Labour’s slashing it.
Worth pointing out, however, that the pension age change came when the Tories and Lib Dems were in power, so really can’t be blamed on the present government.
But the fact is that senior Labour figures, Starmer included, sided with the Waspis for years, insisting that they got their due.
Which shows a serious lack of political nous in not spotting that if they got elected they’d look like hypocrites. For not coming up with the goods.
Not such a surprise, though, according to the nation’s top polling guru Sir John Curtice. He summed up this government problem succinctly. And brutally:
‘Starmer doesn’t do narrative, he doesn’t do story.’
In fairness, he adds, the same applied to Rishi Sunak. And the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey’s no better either.
However, rather chillingly to the lot of them, Professor Curtice maintains that Reform Leader Nigel Farage is ever so good at it.
Context matters here.
Labour got its massive majority in parliament with just a third of the popular vote, the lowest winning share of any party for nearly a century.
And, Farage’s lot were hot on their heels in getting on for a hundred of their seats. Our clunky voting system left them with only five MPs, but watch out for a great leap forward.
Given the clear evidence of Reform getting its organisational act together, May’s town hall elections could mark the breakthrough’s beginning.
On the way the likely multi-million dollar dividends stemming from Nige’s chumminess with Elon, the world’s richest man, will come in handy.
Meantime, with Musk’s orange-tinted bestie about to shake up the world, Starmer’s promotion of Tony Blair’s one-time spin doctor to US ambassador is no small matter.
Known to his enemies as the Prince of Darkness, Peter Mandelson’s a potent choice of long spoon for supping with the Devil.
Except that he’ll need to cosy up as close as possible PDQ, given that he described the incoming President a few years back as: ‘Little short of a white nationalist and racist.’
Besides which, it’s all too easy to picture Mandy, as his closer friends call him, getting The Donald to agree to something, only to hear him say the opposite a few hours later.
A matter of profound delicacy to us hard up Brits, given Trump’s ongoing threat to charge everyone extra money to sell them stuff.
Which begs yet another awkward question for Starmer as we approach the new year.
Do we suck up like crazy to the Yanks, who’re our biggest export market, or try and tilt towards the next largest, that’s to say the European Union?
Cue Sir Keir’s big reset, and his hopes for a better deal with our neighbours on trade as well as security.
The stakes are high, as it’s estimated that the added post-Brexit paperwork getting in the way of exports is costing us three billion pounds a year.
And that’s just for starters.
Economists’ near-unanimous prediction that the rupture would leave us worse off has turned out to be horribly accurate.
Some say that by last year it meant we all had nearly two grand less in our pockets than we would have done.
But, seeing as the referendum was a Tory idea, doing anything much about it had to wait until Labour got in.
Nearly all polls show that if he tries to soften Brexit then British voters will be a soft touch. And the mood music in Brussels is reasonably harmonious too.
But a legal wrangle that’s cropped up over the last government’s treatment of European citizens in 2020 has struck a discordant note.
In fact the question of whether the European Court should hold sway over here will play its part, with right wing papers already accusing Starmer of selling out.
Far more importantly, there’s a clash in prospect over whether British and European youngsters should be allowed to study or work where they choose for a while.
Partly thanks to fear of the fundamentalist Brexiteer tendency permeating Farage’s crowd, Starmer’s doing a General De Gaulle-style non on that one.
It’s early days yet, though. The negotiations proper don’t start till spring, but they’re likely to be a defining story of 2025.
There’ll be cliffhangers aplenty along the way, with last-minute rescues doubtless in prospect. In fact, Capital Radio DJ Jordan North went one better last week.
When a panic-stricken woman told him her dog had fallen into the Thames he leapt into action, clambering onto a jetty near Hammersmith Bridge to grab the Labrador.
Problem was, after he’d tried, tried, and tried again and eventually managed to pull the pet out of the water he felt his own legs giving up on him.
Happily, someone called the coastguards and a team quickly helped the animal off his lap and the two of them back onto the pavement.
‘They’re the heroes’, he declared.
Which they were. After all, it’s not every day you come across a rescuer’s rescuer.
Happy Christmas, everyone. And your best friends.
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