The joke reportedly doing the rounds in Liverpool after Sir Keir Starmer’s conference speech there went pretty much along these lines. “I think I’ll go to Reform’s conference next year. At least they won’t keep banging on about Nigel Farage.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Farage fan. But I think it was a huge tactical mistake for the PM to make so much of his speech about the Reform leader.
For a start it made him look frightened of him. Yes, Farage and Reform UK were the twin-tusked elephants in the room, but Starmer gave them way too much acknowledgement and space. His attitude should have been more: “Who are these pygmies snapping at my heels?” and less: “Aargh! Look everyone! Monsters!”
Then there was his principle line of attack against Farage; that he doesn’t believe in Britain. What were the actual words?
“He doesn’t have anything positive to say about Britain... he doesn’t like Britain... he doesn’t believe in Britain.”
That was, to put it mildly, pushing it. Farage’s entire political platform is built on patriotism. It may not be the kind of patriotism to everyone’s taste, but to dismiss him as a man with no belief in his country is just silly.
It won’t have had any resonance with the huge numbers who say they’d vote Reform tomorrow if there was a general election. They don’t consider themselves to be anti-British: quite the reverse. Starmer’s attack will have had them scratching their heads, or more likely shouting “Rubbish!” at their TV screen.
The same applies to Starmer’s broad-brushing of Reform UK as a racist party. Again, the clear implication is that its supporters are, de facto, racists themselves.
Voters who are quite simply at the end of their tether over successive governments’ failure to deal with illegal immigration (and the sheer scale of legal arrivals here too) will be deeply insulted. They’re not racist. They just want immigration brought under control.
Starmer’s speech was a serious political miss-step. He should have put his arm around Reform UK supporters’ shoulders and coaxed them back into the fold. Instead, he told them off... not the best way to win votes.
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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ... the more it changes, the more it stays the same... words which sprang to mind – well mine, anyway – this week when I saw the photos of lovely Zendaya at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris.
The mini is certainly back with a bang – but it’s no shorter, not by a millimetre, than when me and my student friends at Bristol University were wearing it in the mid-1960s.
I suppose the one difference is that back then, it represented some sort of radical chic rebellion. Now, it’s just chic. Well, it is on Zendaya, anyway.
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I suppose one giveaway lies in the old expression: “Not for all the tea in China”. Or knowing that the reason we call (or used to call) a cup of tea “a cuppa cha” is that the Indian for tea is “chai”.
Or that a quick scan of a box of teabags will usually reveal the word “Kenya” printed somewhere. But here in 2025, one in five British adults have no idea where their cup of tea comes from. A survey this week showed that 21% actually believe all tea is grown in the UK. That rises to 46% among those aged 25 to 34 – and it’s gradually getting worse. Ignorance is slowly brewing.
