Or perhaps the wolf at the door – more likely to be that nice early call from the Police
Have we all misjudged or misunderstood Keir Starmer ?
Note to readers – especially to those outside the UK. I write this post on the back of an extraordinary week of riots on the streets of England and a almost surprising swift but maybe authoritarian leaning new government using both a politicized Police force coupled with a Judiciary being directed by that same government. Like many people in the UK I am left wondering if we have misunderstood our new Prime Minister.
My second note is that I am about to commence on a course of study via Dr Jordan Peterson’s new online academy and this will be, perhaps, my first attempt at writing a more serious post although still based heavily on personal experience and first impressions rather than trying to be a dry academic essay. I should also remind readers that I am not a political commentator and only a rather scrappy blogger : in the words of comedian and writer Stephen Fry – graffiti with punctuation
To begin then and once again, for those that don’t follow current affairs in the Uk, we had an election a month ago and it was a huge win for Labor and almost a complete wipeout for the Conservatives with many Conservative members of Parliament losing their seats : among them Jacob Rees Mogg and former PM Liz Truss. The Labor government now hold a 411 seat majority in the Uk Parliament although I should point out that this was on the basis of only 60% having voted, a decline from 67% in 2019. What this means in terms of those directly voting for a Labor government is that only around 20% of the population actively voted for them.
During the run up to the elections I for one thought that the Conservatives deserved to lose rather than say holding that Labor deserved to win : my frustration with the then existing Conservative government had failed on nearly every promise, notably immigration but also with their poor leadership during the Covid 19 pandemic. The main impression I gained of Sir Keir Starmer at the time was of a charmless, rather cocksure man more akin to some post Soviet era apparatchnik than viable British prime minister. If anything I had intense dislike for the man because he ‘took the knee’ during the BLM riots and secondly because he seemed to say whatever was necessary on the day just to win a vote – even when what he said the very next day was something entirely different.
Rather than carry on down my own biased opinions I took a look at what more knowledgeable commentators have had to say – a good start being those who know the man or at least have interviewed him several times. The first outside (to me) opinion came from Piers Morgan, again someone I know will have an opinion because he has apparently interviewed Keir Starmer on 3 occasions : this, as I was able to view it was in the form of an interview with Dr Jordan Peterson and it was Peterson himself asking for knowledgeable opinions regarding British political figures.
Piers Morgan’s take, or opinion, of Keir Starmer was that of a man who came from a difficult upbringing, rose in his profession due to hard work only and is a thoughtful and serious man now. This isn’t quite what I expected and I was somewhat pleased to hear an opinion contrary to my own.
I take a second opinion from Peter Hitchens, once a hard line Marxist/Trotskyite and nowadays self confessed Christian and anti Conservative political commentator. In his opinion Starmer is a dogmatic authoritarian who has a hard line background in far left Trotskyite politics : that he was at one time a follower of Pabloism ( I admit that I had no idea what that is), the secretaryr of the Soviet Russia supporting branch of Labor laywers called the Haldane society. Pabloism, by the way, seems to have elements of what Hitchens calls the Red and the Green arm of hardline left wing politics : the red being the ‘slow march’ of the extreme left through politics, the media and academia while the Green aspect is it’s strong espousal of a green net zero agenda.
Hitchens goes on to say that what Starmer is is the second wave of the Blairite government who’s first act was a raid on pension funds and who’s legacy was the multiculturism that is today tending towards sectarian division and violence.
Little surprise then that he(Starmer0 ‘took the knee’ for a quasi Marxist time of protest and rioting by the BLM (Black lives matter) crowd and more recently the Muslim, pro Sharia law faction. If I have this right then one of his roles as a lawyer was in defending Muslim exremists. Also unsurprising is that in merely 4 weeks of power he has become deeply unpopular and seems incapable of accepting that there is deep seated anger among the white working class of the UK.
What the right wing of British media now call Keir Starmer is ‘2 tier keir’ due to what they see as 2 tier policing and now a 2 tier Judiciary – that so called ‘far right thugs’ are quickly arrested and as quickly dealt with in court : meanwhile……it seems that some ethnic groups and the far left Antifa style protesters are generally being handled with a soft touch. The left wing Guardian newspaper claim that there is no such thing as 2 tier policing although the evidence of our eyes suggests otherwise. To me there is clear evidence of a politicized Police force, this is not new and not even as not new as some seem to be saying.
The Police force being used directly at the government’s beck and call goes back as least as far as the 1980’s and 2 events of heavy handed and even illegal action on the part of ‘Maggies Army (Margaret Thatcher of course) . Two of the events that I know of are the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ in 1985 and the virtual destruction of mining communities in 1984 during the miners union (Arthur Scargill )vs Margaret Thatcher.
Right now Keir Starmer is threatening the British public with “the full force of the law” and calling the protesters and rioters both, “far right thugs”. Through his apparent mouthpieces, the new DPP (Director of public prosecutions), the metropolitan Police commissioner plus his own home secretary he is also saying that the “full force of the law” will be brought down on those whom use social media to disseminate incorrect or inflammatory information. So far there have been several prosecutions and even prison time for some individuals whom have posted or tweeted. The contrary view in the media and social media is that Starmer is deliberately setting out, via this these threats and ‘warnings’ to suppress what they call ‘free speech’ while often not understanding the various laws surrounding freedom of expression in the UK.
The metropolitan Police commissioner even went so far as to say that he would ‘go after’ US (American) citizens who post on social media – the clear impression is that this would be the owner of the X posting site (formerly twitter) : this further supported by former SNP leader Hamza Yousaf who says that “he will sue Elon Musk.
It is extremely disturbing that one of Keir Starmer’s first acts as Prime Minister was to ‘pause’ the freedom of speech act for universities, this given Royal assent in 2024. I think we can see which way Keir Starmer leans on anything to with ‘free speech’ (there really is no such thing in the UK) with instead what appears to be a growing authoritarian and dogmatic application of ‘the law’
There is perhaps one more valuable insight before I round off this post and it comes from the Big 5 model of psychometrics and the insight here comes from Dr Jordan Peterson’s lectures about the Big 5 model and specifically today about trait agreeableness, or in this case disagreeableness coupled with a modicum of intelligence. What Peterson says regarding traits (and intelligence) is, for example, that to succeed in law then a person needs high intelligence to cope with the workload of study and a low level of trait agreeableness ; in other words, to be both smart and disagreeable ie highly competitive. I don’t know about Keir Starmer’s intelligence but it seems he was smart enough and competitive enough to rise through the ranks of lawyers to eventually attain the position of Director of Public Prosecutions.
I started to write this post purely on the basis of my poorly formed first impressions during the recent UK election : I said then that I thought him a rather grey and charmless man – more soviet era apparatchnik than charismatic party leader. For a while I was prepared to accept the opinions of those who have met and interviewed him, in this case Piers Morgan who although someone I dislike at least seems to have the ability to size people up rather quickly and to see through interview BS. I thought perhaps that Piers Morgan was right , that Starmer was maybe the serious and thoughtful politician that the country needed ; now though I think that Morgan and others have misunderstood the man and instead of a serious politician I think we have unknowingly elected an ideologue.
Today I detest Keir Starmer, not so much for what he has done regarding the recent riots although his preening self confident message is that he ‘sent a message’ to the ‘far right thugs’ that he would use the “full force of the law against them’ but also it seems who makes the slightest mistake with social media. Every day we hear of someone whom has maybe posted or tweeted incorrectly or unwisely and they are as quickly arrested, tried and sentenced. I could say a lot about the way the criminal justice system is being used – to me it seems as though the whole system is now being weaponised against those not smart or astute enough to stay well clear of any protest.
I will go one step further – today I have absoloute contempt for the man who would ‘take the knee’ for one set of rioter/protesters just because they somehow align with his malign intent. Like many on the hard left he traps himself in the trope of calling out the white working class that he despises except he always refers to them as ‘far right thugs’ – his language, and the way it has been picked up and parroted by the left reminds me of nothing so much as the speeches of Hitler and any other despot who seeks to demean and bring hatred on his enemies – first call them ‘far right thugs’ have your parrots mouth the same words and free licence is given to the hard left and the Islamists to do their worst.
We live in deeply disturbing times.
I’ll see Y’all in Prison or in court perhaps
Dirty Wet Dog, the great adventure. 