Weird Little Worlds

There is something desperately odd about Sir Keir Starmer’s version of political discourse. Everything he says seems to be out of sync with reality, limited to a weird little world of inadequate words and phrases, conveying nothing of substance or interest.

What did Starmer say yesterday, last week, last year? Who cares? Phrases emitted and forgotten, but many other politicians are equally limited. It all makes for a curiously remote and disconnected political arena, a graveyard of deceit, falsehood and implausible expectations .

Has the traditional reliance on political slogans, soundbites and cliché become obsolete? Possibly - perhaps the internet and AI have destroyed it, because many senior UK politicians obviously struggle with their attempts to persuade.

Whatever Starmer and his senior colleagues say within their curiously restricted world of political discourse, voters merely have to browse online for –

Better Ideas

Better Sources

Better opinions

Better questions

Better Explanations

Not all voters bother of course, weird little worlds seem to suit them.

Labour’s First Mission

 

Reeves slammed for 'taking eye off ball' as UK economy up by just 0.1%

Britain’s sluggish economy stayed firmly “stuck in a rut” in the fourth quarter of 2025 when GDP advanced by just 0.1%.

The weaker than expected figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest the damaging speculation during the long build-up to the late November Budget hit economic activity at the end of the year.

They will make bleak reading for Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves who were elected to power in July 2024 promising to make growth Labour’s “first mission.”


It may be worth pointing out that GDP growth of 0.1% doesn't mean much in itself, but it is a reliable indication that Rachel from Accounts doesn't know what she is doing, neither does Starmer and neither does the Treasury. For all anyone knows, economic activity could have declined.

They should ask Jim Ratcliffe what the problem is, but everything we've seen suggests that Starmer isn't keen on people who know things, he's much more comfortable with people who don't. 

Empty Suit Demands Apology

Keir Starmer slams Jim Ratcliffe for saying UK has been 'colonised' by immigrants

Keir Starmer has demanded Sir Jim Ratcliffe apologise for saying "the UK has been colonised by immigrants".

The Prime Minister hit back on Wednesday night by calling the Manchester United co-owner's comments "offensive and wrong".

In a post on X, Sir Keir added: "Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country. Jim Ratcliffe should apologise."


Oh dear, Keir Starmer doesn't like free speech. If he could, he would probably do away with it even more quickly than he is already.

But we knew that.

It's pothole season again

'Huge' pothole damages 30 cars in one evening leaving dozens of motorists stranded

Motorists have complained after a ‘huge’ pothole damaged 30 cars in one night, leaving some drivers waiting hours for assistance.

The hole was several inches deep and filled with water, making it difficult to see as vehicles approached it after dark.

Those caught up in the chaos on Monday said it was lucky there hadn’t been a serious accident at the spot on the B1062 between Beccles and Bungay in Suffolk, where the speed limit is 50mph.

A mobile tyre replacement fitter called out to several jobs at the spot admitted the epidemic of potholes on roads as councils direct resources elsewhere was good business for him – but costly for drivers.

The roads are rough in our bit of Derbyshire and even main roads are in a worse state than previous years. There was almost a third-world look to a short stretch of urban road I drove on yesterday.

Yes the roads are being patched, but the patches don't seem to last and meanwhile enough new potholes appear to overtake the rate of patching. 

Our friendly bus driver says the roads he drives on are in the worst he's ever seen. He's clumping in and out of potholes all day long and can't even weave around the big ones to avoid them.   

Deeply humiliating

Tertius Bonnin has a topical CAPX on Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female Prime Minister. Essentially a story of leadership and that rare ability to blend leadership with tough-minded political honesty.


What Britain can learn from Japanese Thatcherism

The parallels between Japan and Britain are striking – and for Westminster, deeply humiliating
Sanae Takaichi has proved that the public doesn’t want consensus if it means standing still
Japan’s Prime Minister is creating a new generation of popular capitalists

In the pre-dawn stillness of Tokyo’s Nagatacho district, the lights on the fifth floor of the Kantei remain stubbornly ablaze. Inside, Japan’s first female Prime Minister is likely to be on her fourth cup of tea and her eighteenth hour of work. Sanae Takaichi does not believe in Japan’s legendary ‘lost decades’ (roughly 1991-2021) of stagnation, only in the ‘work, work, work’ philosophy that has become her trademark, and now, her country’s new mandate.

For Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the last few years have been a slow-motion descent into the political abyss. Bogged down by archaic slush-fund scandals and a public weary of institutional inertia, the party’s brand has rarely been more toxic. And yet, Takaichi has found a way to capitalise on her party’s decline as her personal popularity has soared.


Well worth reading as a reminder of something we in the UK don't have and are apparently unwilling to vote for. The contrast with Keir Starmer's government could hardly be more humiliating.


The parallels between Japan and Britain are striking – and for Westminster, deeply humiliating. Both are island nations grappling with the weight of past glories, ageing demographics, high levels of national debt and a productivity puzzle that has defied a decade of technocratic tinkering. However, while Britain remains trapped in a cycle of managed decline, Takaichi’s Japan appears to have found an offramp.

Perhaps we could sponsor people too

Elon Musk says SpaceX will build a system to let anyone travel to the moon—here's the timeline

Pack your bags, you might go to the moon soon, not just any normal vacation. Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, has once again gone viral with his big vision for space travel.

On 10 February 2026, Musk announced that his company intends to build a system that would allow virtually anyone to journey to the Moon, showing a giant change in the way humans might access space.

Musk's announcement comes when space exploration is evolving super fast, with governments and private companies alike racing to make lunar and interplanetary travel a reality. According to Musk, the Moon is now a more practical first step than Mars because of its proximity and the frequency with which spacecraft can reach it.


If we could sponsor people to send to the moon, not thinking of anyone in particular, but someone willing to accept the donation of a smart spacesuit and new space goggles perhaps...

Mandate

Starmer loses another top aide but clings on – for now

In front of a packed meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Sir Keir also vowed that as long as he had “breath in my body” he would fight against Nigel Farage on behalf of the country, adding that he had “won every fight I’ve ever been in”.

He said: “After having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos as others have done.”

A chap is bound to wonder what Starmer's 'mandate' is supposed to be, but of course the answer is that the only mandate any of them recognise is to stay in power.

Yet a chap is also bound to wonder if silly political words such as 'mandate' have become useless verbal baggage, words which impress nobody. Or maybe they have evolved into a kind of mystical twaddle akin to astrology, climate dooming and celebrity lingo...

Hang on...

Have twaddle speakers adopted and covertly formalised the language Twaddlish as a signal of social superiority? As the advantages of an upper echelon accent fade away, perhaps Twaddlish has taken its place. 

Gosh, perhaps the mandate of state education is to promote Twaddlish.