The PM must not become known as 'air miles Starmer'

After a spate of foreign trips by Keir Starmer, jittery Labour MPs were reassured last month he would be spending more time on the domestic front. So they were disappointed when he popped up in two Gulf states and Cyprus this week.

- ANDREW GRICE

There is more bad news for them: after 15 visits to 13 countries since the July election, the prime minister will squeeze in yet another trip abroad before Christmas as he tries to enter the growing debate over how the Ukraine-Russia war might end.

Some foreign diplomats are surprised Starmer has not been more forceful on Ukraine, given the UK’s solid support for Volodymyr Zelensky. Emmanuel Macron stole a march by holding talks in Paris with Donald Trump and Zelensky last weekend when the president-elect visited for the reopening of Notre-Dame cathedral.

After the government’s wobbly start, the many Labour backbenchers with small majorities are already fretting about the next election. Although Starmer launched the government’s six policy targets and proposals to boost housebuilding, some of his MPs think he should do more “leading from the front” and worry about his focus on the international agenda.

One warned: “Foreign affairs are not going to decide the next election.” Labour figures who privately predicted the technocratic Starmer would become “a foreign affairs and defence PM” because he is not excited by domestic policy feel vindicated.

Yet there is another side to this story.