Chagos deal is most illogical of Labour's string of slip-ups

VERY FEW of us expected the first 100 days of Keir Starmer's premiership to be a resounding success.

- Esther Krakue

But neither did we expect things to get this bad, this quickly. It would be impossible to count this Government's failures on one hand.

First came the freebie scandal. Cabinet ministers were happy to laud their working-class credentials while treating themselves to VIP stadium boxes, lavish gifts and gig tickets courtesy of donors. Then came the inheritance tax raid on already-struggling farmers a move that will likely add a pittance to Treasury coffers, if farms don't go bust first. Then the Autumn Budget killed off what little hope our faltering economy had of recovery.

But it is David Lammy's astonishing Chagos Islands blunder that takes the cake.

The history of the archipelago is complex. After splitting from Mauritius then still a British colony in 1965, Britain paid £3million to retain the islands, later leasing Diego Garcia to the US for a military base while removing the Chagossians. Now non-binding UN rulings have deemed British control unlawful and backed Mauritius's claim to the territory.

But rather than defend our sovereignty, Starmer's government has rushed to finalise a deal handing the islands over potentially at a cost of billions without even consulting the very people displaced. This in itself is not surprising.