Keir Starmer is in big trouble – but the Tories must pull themselves together quickly | Express Commentary | Comment

There was one remarkable thing about Keir Starmer's State of the Union speech in Downing Street's Rose Garden this week. As he set out his plan to “fix the foundations of our country” after 14 years of Tories “failing”, he ironically looked the way the speech sounded – wooden, gloomy and completely out of touch with reality.

If you are optimistic and enthusiastic about the future of this country, then I can sell you a bridge. Keir Starmer was not on level terms with the British public. He simply showed his true colors, like the final unmasking at the end of a Scooby-Doo episode. The main conclusion of his speech – that “things are going to get worse before they get better” – came as a bit of a surprise.

I don't recall hearing such rhetoric when he was campaigning less than three months ago. What has changed? I suspect that the people of the country were not aware that they were voting for “short-term pain” when they gave his party a historic majority of 174 seats.

But now that we have done that, he no longer has to keep up the charade. That was the plan from the beginning. Of course, the Prime Minister began his speech by repeating his previous statements on the recent unrest.

He again described the rioters as “mindless thugs,” “Nazis” and “right-wing extremists” who had reared their ugly heads by taking advantage of a wave of populism. He praised the swift intervention of the police and the courts in bringing the situation under control.

Yet, not surprisingly, he made little mention of what had caused the riots in the first place. He made no mention of the rising rate of knife crime – the direct cause of the murder of three girls in Southport.

By labelling all protesters 'far-right' he assumes that the country would have breathed a sigh of relief if the alleged perpetrator of the Southport murders had been white rather than black, which is an insulting and painfully naive position to take. Yes, we were all horrified by the scenes we saw across the country.

But the riots were clearly a symptom of the problem, not the cause. And the fact that Keir Starmer fails to recognise this just shows how times have changed. I can never remember a Prime Minister in my life who has so deliberately turned a blind eye to the forces that threaten to divide the country.

Both Tony Blair and David Cameron at least had the common sense to recognise the underlying forces that led to the riots in Birmingham in 2005 and London in 2011 respectively. They talked about social cohesion, integration and declining trust in our police and public institutions.

They were at least prepared to have necessarily difficult conversations with sensitivity. Keir Starmer is not. The Prime Minister's speech was both insensitive and devoid of substance. At no point did I feel he truly understood the challenges facing this country.

He did not address the biggest concern of most Britons – immigration. He made no mention of secure borders, reducing legal immigration or tackling illegal immigration. Instead he babbled about how the country's finances were far worse than his government could have predicted.

Isn't that convenient?

The country is broke, yet the government has magically found enough money to meet the unions' demands. Britain cannot afford to pay pensioners' heating bills in winter, but it can continue to fund our broken asylum system with £5.5 billion a year.

Somehow we don't have enough money to increase funding for the NHS and our education system. But the main factor affecting these sectors – immigration – has not been mentioned!

Our prisons are full, but there is little talk of deporting foreign criminals. There are currently more than 10,000 foreign prisoners in prison, which represents 12% of our prison population.

Starmer may have talked about the importance of growth, but actions speak louder than words. His grand plan involves raising taxes, increasing regulation, expanding quangos and handing more key decisions over to the voters to whom they should be accountable. How can we stop Starmer pandering to the very political bodies that have stoked resentment and division?

An effective opposition is more important now than ever. Conservatives must stop attacking each other and collectively recognise that the greatest threat lies not within themselves, but within 10 Downing Street.

This is the perfect moment to challenge Starmer's deplorable rhetoric before decay sets in. Otherwise, Britain will be unrecognisable after five years of Starmer in office.