Global headwinds. If only. More like a quarter-witted, human tsunami. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves may still be unwilling to mention He Who Cannot Be Named. But this is no natural disaster. It’s one entirely created by the lunatic in the White House.
World stock markets down by another 4% on Monday. A war zone. The chart looks like someone has been shot while holding the tracker. Buckle up for the Next Great Depression. Where the only winners are the traders betting on markets going still lower and the vultures trying to buy up bankrupt businesses. The one bright side? The UK is no longer top of the charts for the single most stupid decision made by a G7 country in the last 80 years. Drinks all round.
Spare a thought for Keir. The man can’t buy a break at the moment. He’d never really had much of a plan other than to get Labour elected and in the past eight months things have gone from bad to worse. He wants us all to feel good about NHS waiting lists and the minimum wage but the reality is everyone feels more broke and less secure. Almost all of which – national insurance increases aside – has little to do with him.
Right now Starmer and the rest of the world is being played by The Donald and there is almost nothing he or they can do about it. To make himself feel better – more powerful – he pretends that his strategy of fawning to Trump has paid dividends. But there is no evidence to support this. In all likelihood we would be on a 10% tariff even if we had a trade deal with the US. That’s the way the Sun-Bed King rolls. Right now, the penguins of Heard Island have about as much clout as Keir.
But a prime minister can’t be seen to be doing nothing. He has to remain upbeat. He can’t stand before the TV cameras and tell the country: “You know what? We’re in deep shit and I can’t see a way forward unless the tariffs are reversed.” He has to believe in some master plan. That a new industrial strategy can be plucked out of thin air, one that might mitigate Agent Orange. That some new global realignment can stave off a recession. He’s allowed to dream.
So Keir and Rachel headed off to the Jaguar Land Rover factory in the West Midlands to try to sprinkle a little stardust on the economy. To generate some confidence that they themselves don’t feel. That no one does. That’s the problem. No one thought The Donald would actually do anything quite that dumb. Make his own country and the rest of the world substantially poorer.
And Trump only did it because he could. There was no great economic rationale behind it. Just some fag packet theory dreamed up by someone who didn’t even exist. Imagine. And now the Donald is in too deep. Way over his head. And he can’t back down because that would mean admitting he had made a mistake. So we all get to suffer. Not just mad but dim. Threatening a further 50% tariff increase on China. Where does he think Americans buy their TVs from?
Reeves got to go first. A speech so shouty that it hinted at panic. As if the only way she could get herself to believe it was if she yelled. Not that there was a lot to understand. Jaguar Land Rover was brilliant. People were worried. The global landscape had changed. Still no mention of He Who Cannot Be Named. Yet again, the impression being given that this was just some minor natural correction. Something that had been expected. We must change. She had no idea how.
Over to Starmer. I’m not sure who wrote this speech. It can only have been a corrupted beta version of ChatGPT. No human could come up with this level of mindlessness. Keir was meant to be cheering up the JLR workforce. By the time he finished 10 minutes later, most would have been reaching for the Valium. To fend off the PTSD. Convinced there was no point in going on.
“These are challenging times,” Starmer began. “But we will back you.” How? By rising to the challenge. It was all vague platitudes. Sentences that made sense taken on their own, but collapsed into emptiness once heard consecutively. Semantic entropy. He had everyone’s back and was going to seize the possibilities. Once he had discovered what those possibilities were. He would get back to you on that.
The future was in our hands. Just blatantly untrue. Whatever plan we came up with the EU or the penguins could just as easily be derailed by the next Bonfire of the Insanities from the White House. But don’t mention the trade war. Pretend everything can be fixed. That we’re not in too deep. That the pain is temporary.
More words. It takes a lot to make Reeves sound like a convincing orator but Keir nailed it. Talking of the cars coming off the production line, he said we were watching British brilliance in the flesh. Er … they are metal. Soon we were playing Starmer bingo. Dad was a toolmaker. Then a list of some minor measures on easing minor targets for car emissions that were already being planned before the tariffs. Hooray! These were going to neutralise the 25% levy. Take that, Donald. It was like watching someone sinking beneath the waves.
The questions were no more enlightening. Nor did the answers offer up much hope. The BBC pointed out there was no way of shielding the UK from the Trump effect. Keir looked startled. Someone had mentioned He Who Cannot Be Named. We have to step into that space with a driving sense of purpose, he said. Any idea what that means? Me neither. Nor was it entirely clear if he was planning on sticking to the government’s fiscal rules or not. I guess it doesn’t matter much either way any more.
ITV went straight for the doomsday scenario. The markets were in freefall. This was Trump’s global crash. Why not at least regain some self-worth by not rewarding the maniac with a second state visit? Otherwise you were only encouraging him to do something even more daft. Not that he needed much encouragement. Starmer’s answer was A-grade waffle. Keep calm and carry on. But carry on doing what?
#Keir #Rachel #remain #upbeat #Named #John #Crace
