Labour must expose the snake-oil charm peddled by populism

For a politician who has avoided high-flown rhetoric, Keir Starmer is sounding remarkably ambitious.

- John Harris

As he addressed the House of Commons after last week's king's speech, he said his government's aim was "nothing less than national renewal". But there was an even bigger story he wanted to tell, aimed not just at hard-right Tories and the chancers of Reform UK, but their political soulmates across the world. At that point, Donald Trump had just survived an assassination attempt and Joe Biden was still clinging on to his declining hopes of another presidential term, and it seemed as if Starmer wanted to do his bit to fill the moral breach: his government's agenda, the Labour leader said, represented "a rejection, in this complicated and volatile world, of those who can only offer the easy answer - the snake-oil charm of populism".

Over the past week, two very different elements of the news have highlighted what this means and the challenge Starmer faces. A lot of domestic headlines focused on his government's opening array of policies.

Last week's meeting of the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace saw ministers reconnecting with our old friends in the EU, and gave Starmer a chance to reaffirm Britain's commitment to the European convention on human rights and international law.

But developments in the US threaten to drown that out.