Keir Starmer's values - tell it as it isn't

Starmer 'won't quit as PM' even if Labour hammered in local elections

Sir Keir Starmer will not resign even if Labour suffers very heavy losses at the May local elections, says a Cabinet minister.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds braced the party for dismal results in just over a month’s time, stressing many people may use the elections to voice a “protest” vote in the cost-of-living crisis deepening due to Donald Trump’s Iran war...

Sir Keir was pledging to “fight for our values” in an increasingly volatile world as he kicks off Labour’s local election campaign on Monday in the West Midlands.

By gum, "Sir" Keir Starmer seems intent on using the Iran war to present himself as some kind of aloof statesman as his piercing gaze penetrates the fog of war through Lord Alli's special spectacles.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds is confused though. She may not have noticed, being too busy fixing the environment, but Labour was extremely unpopular long before the Iran conflict.

Something else Emma may not have noticed is that it is Labour policies which have been busily damaging the UK economy and Donald Trump isn't the UK Prime Minister - "Sir" Keir Starmer is.

Lost for Words

Lost for words! Proof we're losing the art of conversation as Britons using 20 per cent fewer words

They say the art of conversation is dead – and psychologists have found we now speak about 20 per cent fewer words every day than we did two decades ago.

We are losing more than 300 words from our daily conversations every day – equivalent to 120,000 words a year, a study reveals.

The biggest decline is among Gen Z, with major implications for the loneliness epidemic and how we communicate in the future, especially with the rise of AI.

Baffling - perhaps there are reasons why we don't listen to words as much we used to - 

 

Propaganda Works

Large crowds attend 'No Kings' rallies against Trump across US

More than 3,200 events ‌were planned in all 50 states, and organisers hoped it would be the largest single-day protest in US history.

Tens of thousands of anti-Trump protesters have been attending "No Kings" rallies on Saturday across the US.

More than 3,200 events ‌were planned in all 50 states, and organisers hoped it would be the biggest single-day protest in US history.

The words provide the unmissable clues - 'planned in all 50 states' and 'organisers'. 

The weird but too familiar aspect is that supposedly intelligent and independent people are willing to be organised in this way and are prepared to rally round an infantile slogan as such as 'No Kings'.

'No Kings' is broad-brush, virtue-signalling, fashionable and effortless. It is propaganda, obviously so, but it works. Are demonstrators generally uneasy about the effect such crude propaganda has on them? No, the slogan is not aimed at people who might be uneasy about succumbing to it. It selects them and we may assume that they don't know they have been selected.

It's propaganda and clearly about generating headlines, but it works well enough to do that, as the organisers knew it would. 

Hot Topic

Victory for the Mail on Sunday as emergency services start tracking cause of fires in hybrid cars

Emergency services are overhauling how they investigate accidents involving hybrid cars after The Mail on Sunday revealed that motorists are three times more likely to die in hybrids than in petrol cars...

A total of 122 people died in hybrid car crashes in 2024, compared with 777 in accidents involving petrol cars, according to Department for Transport figures analysed by the MoS.

But as hybrids are outnumbered by almost 20 to 1 on Britain’s roads by petrol models, that means hybrids are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash. Previously, the Government did not accept that there is a problem.

You will own nothing and be...

Video from the US, but the general trend has been visible for some time.

The Crazy Golf Solution

Cap on number of drinking venues in Derby city centre to remain in place

A restriction to limit and control the number of drinking venues within Derby city centre will remain after police warned crime could rise if it was removed.

Derby councillors have voted to keep large parts of the city centre a Cumulative Impact Area (CIA).

A CIA allows local authorities, such as Derby City Council, to restrict the number of licensed premises in specific areas – if they believe a high concentration of them could undermine key safety objectives.

The CIA encourages different types of offerings for the city centre away from drinking venues and nightclubs. Derby also has Vaillant Live, Derby Theatre, The Quad, casinos, crazy golf and cinema attractions. 

Time to be positive

The weekend is upon us, UK clocks go forward to British Summer Time tonight and it's moderately sunny here in Derbyshire. Perhaps it’s time to be more positive about Sir Keir Starmer, it’s a difficult job and he sticks at it. For example we could describe Sir Keir as –

Tenacious
Unwavering
Reliable
Dependable

A cheap and easy weekend pat on the back perhaps, but it feels good to be more positive about the chap.