A scathing behind-the-scenes book detailing the Labour Party-run Downing Street has claimed that government insiders view Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as nothing more than a walking and breathing automaton with no principles, beliefs, or meaningful intellect.
The caricature of Prime Minister Starmer as being a robot appears to be based on reality, according to an updated edition of Get In — The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer by journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, in which the embattled PM is cast as leading an “oddly passive premiership” in which the opaque decision-making process has confounded even those closest to Starmer.
One former top aide was quoted in the book as describing the Prime Minister as “the least intellectually curious person I have ever met” in excerpts seen by the Sunday Times.
A political ally said of Starmer: “He can only prepare by reading briefing books for hours on end. He doesn’t brainstorm. He has no fixed views on anything. There’s no clarity because there’s no belief. There’s no belief because there’s no understanding. There’s no understanding because there’s no curiosity.”
Another former adviser remarked, “I don’t think he has a theory of power. I don’t think he’s ever sat down and read any history, or has any idea of how power works. I just don’t think he would be attracted to the kind of historical figures who got stuff done.”
The updated book detailed the fall of Lord Peter Mandelson, who was installed by Starmer as UK ambassador to the United States — one of the most important positions in the British government — despite the PM having been aware that Mandelson had continued his relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein even after his conviction for child prostitution. As the scope of their close ties began to be exposed by the Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice, Downing Street was apparently rudderless amid the major scandal.
A confidant of former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who ultimately fell on his sword and resigned over the appointment of Mandelson to the top diplomatic posting, told the authors that McSweeney said his guess was as good as anyone’s where the prime minister would “end up” on any issue in the hours leading up to Mandelson’s sacking.
“It’s definitely not a relationship where the chief of staff is the voice and the eyes and the ears of their principal,” an insider said. “The room where decisions are taken doesn’t exist. You would think that it was a deliberate thing, that Keir thrives in chaos. But it’s not, and he doesn’t. It’s very, very strange.”
It comes as similar allegations were made against the Prime Minister in public by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has become increasingly exasperated with his British counterpart over his bending to dubious ‘international law’ arguments to cede the Chagos Islands, and for initially refusing to allow the U.S. Military to use British bases to strike the Islamist regime in Iran.
Relations further soured this week as Starmer openly refused to heed President Trump’s call for allies to help the United States police the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran to protect the critical oil supply chain chokepoint.
Recounting a recent conversation with the Prime Minister on the issue of the Strait, President Trump mocked Starmer for his dependence on staff and apparent unwillingness to make hard decisions for himself.
“The Prime Minister of the UK yesterday, told me ‘I’m meeting with my team to make a determination’. I said you don’t need to meet with a team, you’re the Prime Minister. You can make your own [decisions], why do you need to meet with your team to find out if you’re going to send some minesweepers? You don’t have to meet with your team,” Trump said.
President Trump further lamented that despite Britain being America’s “oldest ally” and the vast sums of U.S. taxpayer dollars spent protecting the UK and Europe, allies are nowhere to be found when the United States requests help.
“So I was… not happy with the UK. I think they will be involved, yeah, maybe. But they should be involved enthusiastically! We’ve been protecting these countries for years with NATO, because NATO is us,” the President remarked.
The indecisive nature of Starmer has not only hurt his relations with the U.S. and President Trump, but his government has suffered from frequent U-turns and reversals, often putting his top officials in the unenviable position of defending unpopular positions only to have to say the exact opposite days later.
In perhaps the most defining string of U-turns for his premiership, the Get In authors reported that Prime Minister Starmer was not even in the room when it was decided to scrap winter fuel allowance for pensioners to fill a supposed “black hole” in the national budget, which was later revealed to be fictitious.
The politically disastrous decision, which saw the Labour Party slammed in the press for months as putting the welfare of grandmothers in jeopardy rather than cutting other spending. The politically devastating decision, which eroded much of Labour’s natural support base, and saw Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who apparently made the unilateral move amid Starmer’s absence, later broke down in tears in the House of Commons as she was accused of acting as a “human shield” for the Prime Minister’s political career.
Apparently unfazed by the display of emotion, Starmer carried on from the dispatch box with little regard for his weeping Treasury Chief. A civil servant quoted in the book remarked that Starmer “is not a compassionate man. He’s careless about people around him. It’s just not warm. He just doesn’t think very hard about other people.”
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