3 DECEMBER 2025 | OPINION
To begin at the ending, a very good place to start. Starmer was finally told off for his time-wasting habit of making a speech before questions commence. According to Quentin Letts, Speaker Hoyle fumed: “Never again!” We shall see if the PM heeds the scolding.
The latest speechlet was inter alia about the cost of infant formula and the Tories’ failure to lift children out of poverty. That linked well to the first query, Ian Lavery’s, which spoke of the low incomes and shortened lives of his constituents in the North-East and asked Sir Keir for a discussion about the way forward.
Lavery blamed the crippling legacy of deindustrialisation on the Tories, but sadly Sir Keir had little to offer by way of solutions. Instead, the PM boasted of abolishing the two-child benefit cap, raising the minimum wage and a £150 discount on domestic energy bills. That is palliative care, not a cure.
Life on poorly-paid employment and government handouts is killing Lavery’s people – deaths of despair (from suicide and alcohol/drug abuse) are more than twice as common than in London. What they need is decently-paid work so that they can support themselves and their families, and pay their taxes.
Manufacturing has not disappeared; it’s gone abroad. So has much of our cash, spent on importing the goods we could have produced for ourselves – that is one reason why money now circulates half as fast in our economy as it did in the 1980s.
We have to rebuild our industrial base, and above all we need cheap energy. Until we abandon Net Zero, the country’s finances will continue to unravel ever faster, as we import millions more who Labour hopes will be a replacement loyal voter base for them.
For rather than fight for national recovery, the PM has given up on the Northerners to focus on Labour’s re-election strategy. “Starmer’s abandoned us,” a Red Wall MP told the Mail’s Dan Hodges. “It’s basically every man for himself.”
In the exchanges between the PM and LOTO, Sir Keir said the Chancellor’s Budget last week would “create the conditions for economic stability”. He claimed growth was up, wages were up. So was unemployment, retorted Mrs Badenoch; “no-one believes a word the Prime Minister says”.
Hearing Starmer’s cheery claims, one is reminded of Iraq’s “Comical Ali”, reporting victory as US tanks rumbled in the background. He is correct in saying the Conservatives have failed us, but he (or would that be the Cabinet Office?) shows no awareness of our economic vulnerability and how to mitigate the damage. If Steve Keen, one of the few economists who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, is correct, we are facing another deflationary collapse like that of the 1930s. Even the Bank of England is warning of a crash.
What do we get instead? Emotive language. “Shame” was a word used six times by Sir Keir as he clobbered the Opposition with poor kids, the NHS and the Conservatives’ hurty words about the Chancellor. Also “apologise“ and “decency”, twice each. Pretty soon, he will reply by holding up emoticons like these: 😳 🙏😔😇 for the benefit of our increasingly less well-read electorate. Not that they will have the chance to vote, if he has anything to do with it.
The Leader of the Lib Dems described as “wise” the PM’s Chief Economic Adviser’s suggestion of a fresh Customs Union with the EU. Starmer told Reliably Wrong Man that the UK was working on closer relationships with the EU, but that there were some “red lines”. If there is any doubt as to the folly of running back into the arms of Brussels, remember that David Lammy has also been promoting the idea.
We really don’t need to tie our little ship to the rudder of the Titanic. We should concentrate on battening the hatches.
