‘Crashing bore’ Keir Starmer and his own six words that will come back to haunt him

Sir Keir Starmer – the crashing bore destined to lead this country for the next decade – damned himself to hell and back this week with his own words. When asked why in 2019 he’d said Jeremy Corbyn would make a good PM and twice backed his hard left policies, Starmer said he’d only done it because he knew Labour “wasn’t going to win the election.”

It’s a lie. He didn’t know. That’s not me saying that, it’s Jezza himself: “Well, he never said that to me at the time. And re-writing history is no help because it shows double standards. He was part of our campaign and he and I spoke together at events. I find what he’s saying now quite sad.”

Yes, and the rest of us thinks it stinks and speaks to exactly the kind of man Starmer is.

But drill down here and look at what the Labour leader’s own words really say about him. They say he’s a man who says one thing and means another, a man whose words cannot be trusted and who will say what’s necessary when its advantageous to him

And, at the time, it WAS advantageous for him to suck up to Corbyn who he knew was an anti-semite and a friend of Hamas. Yet still he praised him publicly because many believed Corbyn was destined to be our next PM, and Slippery wanted to protect his position as in his cabinet.

We’ve all known for years that Starmer changes his mind and his policies as often as he changes his underwear, but this week was proof positive. He publicly backed a man who’s policies he said he was 100 per cent behind yet now he says those policies were so bad he’s had to change the whole ethos of the party because of them.

So what kind of a man does this make him – a cowardly one who says one thing yet does another. In short, a man who can’t be trusted.

It’s also the man who this week described his five year stint as Director of Public Prosecutions as a job where he earned a “reasonable” salary. Well let’s look at this “son of a toolmaker’s” idea of reasonable. Back in 2008, when he got the job, he was on £200,000 a year. His expenses bill for first class flights, trains and top class hotels was £250,000 (his successor’s travel bill was a third of that). And he accrued £336,000 in pension benefits.

He also had a chauffeur driven car that cost taxpayers £161,273 even though he lived just four miles from the Crown Prosecution Service HQ .

Yet, still Labour, had the brass neck to accuse the Tories of overseeing “lavish spending on hotels, hospitality and other costs using taxpayer-funded debit cards”. Yet its own leader was very happy to dip his own snout into the public trough when he was DPP.

And just to confirm Starmer’s hypocrisy in banging on about how he understands people who struggle to pay bills, we learn from his own entry in the Register of Members' Interests that multi-millionaire Labour peer Waheed Ali gave Starmer £20,000 to pimp up his election wardrobe – £16,200 for 'work clothes' and £2,485 for 'multiple pairs of glasses'.

Yep, this is the son of a humble toolmaker…

I tell you this because it all points to Starmer’s hypocrisy, his double standards and what amounts to a lack of integrity. He rails at “posh” Tories for doing precisely what he’s done himself which renders his “Man of the People” act farcical.

What he said this week shows he’ll do and say whatever it takes to get the keys to No 10. The tax rises in his own manifesto – despite his promise not to raise raises – reveal £8.5billion worth of them which will take the UK’s tax burden to the highest level in history, higher than anything the Tories imposed..

So if anyone’s going to be using public money – your money – like a cash machine, it's Slippery Starmer.

• The headline said: “Amanda Holden has everything covered up as she prepares to launch a new TV show about adultery.”

I had to read it again because I don’t think there’s been an occasion in the last 20 years that Ms Holden has had everything covered up. In fact she tries to get away with covering up as little as possible.

That said – if I had a body like hers I’d have it on permanent show too.

• The BBC is ramping up its bid to poach Alison Hammond permanently from ITV by offering her a travel show. Good. Can we please all chip in and make sure they get her. Because if she goes to the Beeb I’ll never see her again (I don’t watch the BBC).

I’m not sure why ITV regard her as one of their biggest stars. She’s loud without substance, her cackling laugh grates, she can’t interview for toffee and she’s wrecked that once fantastic show, For The Love of Dogs.

Come on BBC up the ante and take her… please!

• The gloss is fast wearing off the BBC’s new Today presenter, Emma Barnett. She was interviewing David Cameron who, fed up of her constant interruptions, said: “You’ve obviously been to the John Humphrys' school of never-ending interruptions.”

To which Barnett snapped back: “I went to my own school.” And she’s right, comparing her in any way to the great John Humphrys is an insult to Humphrys who, in terms of interview skills, knocks spots off her. The big difference between the two is that Humphrys never believed his opinions were more important than his guests.

Barnett does…

• Golfer Rory McIlroy’s advisors (financial or emotional?) have told him to give his marriage to the beautiful Erica Stoll another six months.

McIlroy, who filed for divorce four weeks ago, said: “Erica and I have realised that our best future was as a family, together.” How very un-romantic. No, “We love each other madly”, or “We realised we’d made a terrible mistake”. Just this flat, perfunctory statement.

If I was Erica, I would be running for the hills because this marriage has got no chance.

Could it be that McIlroy’s advisors were telling him to patch things up because they know he’s chippy, a bit difficult and friends say “he can’t be on his own for five minutes”.

Let’s not forget it’s the US Open this week and McIlroy has a good chance of winning. But then maybe, if he’d been an emotional wreck after his marriage break-up, he’d lose the tournament, the $170,000 prize money and a big chunk of alimony.

His “advisors” probably wouldn’t like that!

• If Lib Dem leader Ed Davey loses his Kingston & Surbiton seat there’ll always be work for him at any Big Top – as the clown!

• There is much excitement about Euros 2024. Endless newspaper column inches devoted to half naked pics of the hunky players, stories about the Wags, speculation about how we’ll do. Well let’s not rely on speculation – but on fact.

And the fact is we’ve never won the Euros. The closest we got was in 2020 when we were runners up. FIFTY SIX years before that – in 1968 – we scraped into third place.

Yes we Brits are famous for our “Hope Over Experience” philosophy, but winning the Euros is a bit of a stretch. Unless we’re talking about the Women’s Team obviously who DID win in 2022!

• Three cheers for Gavin and Stacy’s Ruth Jones who says she’s sick of politically correct, right-on people who describe her as “an actor”.

“I always correct people’s political correctness,” she says “And if I’m introduced as an actor, I say, ‘No, I’m an actress’. And when they say, ‘It’s our policy to call you an actor’, I tell them I ‘identify’ as an actress.”

That’s the way, Ruth – make fools of the fools. The fight to protect women’s rights is turning out to be a long and bloody one and we need gutsy women like Ruth in the thick of it.

• ITV could be culling some of its Loose Women “stars”. Good. They need women with good strong opinions on that show – like those of my great pal Jane Moore.

However there are lots of twittery, not very bright ladies who are there for reasons that have nothing to do with their opinions or their intelligence. Also when did Loose Women bosses decide that a controversial opinion that might offend some people was a bad one from which all other women must be protected. It’s patronising.

This desperation not to offend anyone is why people are losing interest and ratings are falling.

• IF WE HAVE TO LOSE ANYTHING LOSE THIS.

We could be on the brink of World War Three, the economy is flat, and Labour is about to assume power, yet the problem occupying the minds of those looking after the Wags in Germany is that the only place for them to shop is TK Maxx.

Personally, I’m never out of the place. But let’s not pretend that before those Wags nabbed their super rich footballers they didn’t frequent TK Maxx.

In fact I’d be surprised if they didn’t buy designer bargains there to help lure their multi-million pound prey.