When Keir Starmer became Labour leader five years ago, I thought I’d better come up with a suitable nickname.
The first I fastened upon was Max Headroom, largely because of his uncanny resemblance to the 1980s computer-generated MTV video jockey. Gary conjured up a perfect cartoon likeness, complete with Cornetto hairdo.
There were other runners and riders. Given that Starmer was the first Opposition leader with a knighthood since chinless Tory toff Alec Douglas-Home in the early Sixties and had a reputation as a bit of a Champagne Socialist, Keir Royale also made the cut.
But in the end, I threw the final decision out to Mail readers, who voted overwhelmingly for Max Headroom.
Somehow, though, the nickname got lost in the flood during Covid. More recently, I’ve settled on Surkeir since that’s the way most broadcasters pronounce it – running his title and Christian name into a single word.
(Can I still say Christian name?)
But having watched Starmer’s press conference yesterday, I should have stuck with Max. If he mentioned ‘Headroom’ once, he must have mentioned it a dozen times.
That, of course, was in reference to last week’s disastrous, dishonest Budget, which the Prime Minister signed off in full knowledge that it was built on a parcel of lies.
The first nickname I fastened upon for Starmer was Max Headroom, because of his uncanny resemblance to the 1980s computer-generated MTV video jockey, writes Richard Littlejohn
Surkeir’s defence of Rachel Reeves is risible, writes Richard Littlejohn
As I regularly admit, this column does words not numbers. But as has been revealed over the past few days, Rachel Reeves knew perfectly well – courtesy of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – she had, er, headroom, not a Star Trek-style ‘black hole’, and there was no excuse for hiking taxes to pay for a welfare bonanza.
But sooner rather than later they’re both toast – just like the boss of the OBR.
Reeves lied to Parliament, to the Cabinet, to the media, to the markets, but worse – to the British people, with the full approval of the PM. Her attempts to justify her shameless pre-Budget porkies fell flat over the weekend.
It doesn’t matter how much mascara you wear, Rachel, you can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.
Ultimately, though, the buck stops with Starmer. And yesterday, he was in full, robotic, Complete and Utter Lawyer mode. Roping himself together with his Chancellor, he claimed to be ‘proud’ of the Budget and denied there was any deliberate deception about the state of the public finances in the run-up to last Wednesday.
When he said that they were now navigating ‘the narrowest part of the tunnel’ and the British economy would soon emerge into the sunlit uplands, I laughed out loud.
The only part of the tunnel this gruesome twosome are navigating is the one which leads from the U-bend to the sewage works. And they’re taking us all with them.
Starmer and Reeves are the political equivalent of the British bog-snorkelling team, up to their oxters in the brown stuff.
I know lawyers like Surkeir are supposed to subscribe to the ‘cab rank’ principle and are prepared to present any brief on behalf of their clients, however far-fetched.
But his defence of Reeves – and, by extension, himself – yesterday was risible. Even before he took to his hind legs, the jury wasn’t so much out as over the road in the Magpie And Stump, tucking into a pint and a pork pie, having delivered a unanimous verdict of ‘guilty’.
Surkeir’s plea of mitigation, his own deprived childhood, phone cut off, cold bedroom, family couldn’t pay the bills, tatty school uniform etc, was simply embarrassing. It was the Surrey equivalent of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen.
Before the young Keir headed off to his grant-aided grammar school from the cardboard box where he grew up in the deprived, poverty-stricken Guildford stockbroker belt, he had to lick the road clean with his tongue because his parents couldn’t afford to give him any breakfast.
No doubt his beleaguered Chancellor once lived for three months in a rolled up newspaper in a septic tank. Which is why they hiked taxes to take 50 million (fill in your own figure) children ‘out of poverty’.
Sorry, but nobody – apart from the applauding seals from central casting at the back of the press conference – is buying any of this guff.
Let me put it this way, Max. When even the Left-wing BBC and Sky News accuse you of lying, the game’s up.
I think ITV’s Peston may have done the same, but I always lose the will to live halfway through his questions.
Starmer and Reeves may just about be one step ahead of the posse right now but they can’t postpone their day of reckoning for ever.
The watchdogs, the media, even half the Cabinet are closing in. Yesterday’s ‘damage limitation’ operation was an exercise in sophistry, an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
OK, so they may hang on for a while after having tossed some red meat to their gormless, class-warrior backbenchers. But sooner rather than later they’re both toast.
The odds on either of them still being in their jobs after the local elections in May? As Max Headroom might have observed:
N-n-n-n-no chance . . .
