‘Keeping calm and carrying on’ may not save Starmer

Keir Starmer tried to make a virtue of not announcing anything at his news conference yesterday.

- JOHN RENTOUL

When a journalist accused him of failing to offer anything new to people worried about their bills going up because of the war, he said: “That is the point.” The government had already taken action to cut bills before the war, he said, and it was not going to be panicked, he implied, into rash action before it knew the scale of the problem.

Instead, he had come to the lectern to announce two meetings. Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, will host a gathering of 35 nations that intend to “push, as one, for maritime security across the Gulf”. In other words, to try to open the Strait of Hormuz – but only “after the fighting has stopped”. Then there will be a “new summit with our EU partners” to promote even closer economic and security cooperation than was agreed last year.

This was the real political message – directed at his party by a prime minister who still feels that his position is insecure. A two-part message that is music to many Labour ears: boo to Trump and hurrah for Europe.