Stay-away Starmer needs to spend more time at home

You cannot win in politics. When Rishi Sunak became prime minister, he thought it was more important to stay at his desk, working on the people's priorities, than to waste time taking a plane to Sharm el-Sheikh and back for a photo opportunity with world leaders at Cop27.

- JOHN RENTOUL

Except that there was such an outcry about his refusal to save the planet that he sheepishly got on the plane anyway, and flew a 5,000-mile round trip to the climate summit.

When Keir Starmer became prime minister in July, he was off to Washington on day five for a Nato summit, and then to Berlin and Paris before the end of the month. Eyebrows were raised among former ministers, and questions were asked about whether he had allowed officials to capture his diary.

After a pause in August, Starmer’s foreign trips resumed: Berlin, Paris, Dublin, Washington, Rome, New York, Brussels, Berlin, Samoa, Budapest and, this week, Paris and Baku. Sky News calculated that he would be out of the country for 22 days out of 77.

The voters have started to notice. Luke Tryl, who runs focus groups for the More in Common campaign for the better understanding of politics, said on Monday: “‘Starmer always seems to be abroad’ has started coming up spontaneously in our focus groups.”