The more I see of Sir Keir Starmer, the more he seems to me a very odd man indeed.
One of his chief oddities is his passion for international travel. If he were a private citizen paying his own way, it would be a pardonable obsession. In a prime minister it is alarming.
Since becoming PM he has visited ten countries once, and three countries – the US, Germany and France – three times.
In just over five months, he has been out of this country for more than a month. That means that over 20 per cent of his stint as Prime Minister has been spent travelling abroad.
No doubt a few visits were worthwhile. He had to make his number with President Macron of France and Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany, since they are leaders of important allies.
His two-hour dinner in New York with Donald Trump in September was probably profitable, though Sir Keir likes to refer to it as though the two men established an inalienable bond. I doubt that.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman earlier this week
His jaunt to Saudi Arabia earlier this week to drum up business was made in the right spirit. That said, I wish he would rattle the begging bowl with a bit more decorum under the nose of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. I found it embarrassing.
There have been many trips, however, that were an utter waste of time. Our footloose Prime Minister would have been far better employed tackling the many problems stacking up at home.
Was it really necessary for him to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris in late July? He stayed overnight, and I imagine enjoyed the kind of good dinner that the French capital offers to well-heeled visitors.
A month later, our indefatigable PM was back in Paris for the opening of the Paralympics. After another overnight stay he had another love-in with President Macron. He also met some French business leaders. I wonder how productive that will turn out to be.
The most pointless of his many trips was to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, last month – a return journey of 5,000 miles. The occasion was the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference. Sir Keir stayed long enough to announce that the UK plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 81 per cent by 2035.
The leaders of the US, France and Germany resisted the charms of Baku. So did Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. But our globe-trotting Prime Minister wasn’t to be denied his fleeting visit.
Such heavy lifting that took place on our behalf was carried out by Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, assisted by 448 officials. This was a considerably larger contingent than the US managed to muster. Consider the greenhouse gases generated by this hungry hoard, whose collective hotel bill was £685,000.
But then Sir Keir himself must have built up a carbon footprint larger than that of a small town as he criss-crosses the planet on his often futile and fruitless missions.
What’s going on here? I said his behaviour was odd. Deranged might be a better word. Isn’t it deranged to spend so much time out of the country when problems are piling up as a result of a succession of bad decisions made by this Government?
Maybe, if he didn’t spend so much of his life in the air, Sir Keir could have seen that inflicting inheritance tax on farmers would cause widespread displeasure, and probable unrest. Farmers and their tractors were on the streets of London yesterday for a second time.
Possibly, if he hadn’t been floating around in the troposphere, the PM could have given more thought to the likely effect on businesses of raising national insurance, and restrained the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. She has snuffed out the first flickerings of economic growth.
According to Willie Walsh, a former boss of British Airways, tax rises in the Budget (including on air passenger duty) have severely undermined Britain’s economic prospects.
How paradoxical that Sir Keir should visit Saudi Arabia and the UAE, talking about economic growth as his ‘number one mission’, while back at home the economy is wheezing and puffing after various assaults by the Chancellor.
Meanwhile, trade unions in the NHS and elsewhere are flexing their muscles after being told that next year’s pay awards will be capped at 2.8 per cent. Ambulances are queuing outside accident and emergency departments, and hospitals are struggling to cope with seasonal illnesses.
Why does the Prime Minister spend so much time travelling? It’s not only that he relishes the fine things of life, as he has shown in his weakness for the free clothes and designer glasses showered on him by his friend Lord Alli.
Sir Keir also apparently dislikes the grind of government. Gladhanding the rich and powerful in foreign climes, and having a good old powwow with them, is much more enjoyable than tussling with difficult issues.
He has spent most of his adult life as a lawyer, moving, as lawyers do, from one case to the next. Before becoming Prime Minister he had, unusually for one in his position, never been a minister. He hadn’t grappled with the boring, time-consuming aspects of running the country.
Early last year, in one of those quick-fire quizzes, Sir Keir was asked which location he preferred: Westminster or Davos? He replied ‘Davos’ – the Swiss ski resort where every January the good and the great gather to network and pontificate. Westminster, he complained, was ‘too constrained … a tribal shouting place’.
How telling. The fact is that Westminster and Whitehall are the places where the sometimes boring business of government takes place, and where difficult decisions are made.
Sir Keir can make decisions, especially when his own interests are at stake and he wants to enhance his position. He is capable of being ruthless. But he isn’t suited, either by temperament or background, to arduous, tortuous political life. Much more tempting to hop on the next plane, especially if it’s your official one.
This lack of engagement is very bad news for the country. It helps to explain why, after only just over five months in power, there is such a sense of drift, of problems mounting up that no one is gripping. Unsurprisingly, the PM is addicted to kicking issues into the long grass. At least 67 reviews, consultations and taskforces were set up in the first 150 days of the new Government.
Sir Keir’s latest wheeze is to attach himself to the EU, in the first place as a kind of unofficial member. Rachel Reeves was dispatched to Brussels earlier this week to sit alongside EU finance ministers, and the PM will travel there in February to hobnob with EU leaders.
The scope for junketing and talking and ignoring tiresome Britain is expanding. More flights beckon, more time abroad.
Sir Keir Starmer is truly a novel sort of politician. In fact, as the term is normally understood, he’s not really a politician at all.
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