Article UK: Why Trump is Starmer’s worst nightmare (DIY self-inflicted wounding)

[C C]

https://www.itv.com/news/2026-01-05/why-...-nightmare

INTRO: Sir Keir Starmer routinely describes his friendly relations with Donald Trump as a great asset to the UK. Trump himself though, is a living nightmare for the British prime minister and his ambitions to revive his and his party’s fortunes.

One reason is that every time Trump executes one of his “I-can’t-believe-he-just-did-that” policies, nothing that Starmer says or does is heard by anyone.

Starmer was, for example, hoping to usher in the new year by advertising all the ways he is bringing down the cost of living. But did you notice him in Reading this morning when he boasted about his railway fares freeze and discounts? I’d be surprised.

Because anything Starmer wants to say about pretty much anything is being drowned out by Trump’s seizure of the Venezuelan president, in just the latest manifestation of what you might call a new American exceptionalism - which is a euphemism for Trump sticking two fingers up at allies like the UK, who think the United Nations and international law are worth cherishing and preserving.

So even if Starmer has finally come up with a story to warm your cockles about how he can restore hope to this proud nation - though there was little sign of that in his 45-minute BBC interview on Sunday, Trump is doing his damnedest to prevent any of us knowing about it.

Because if Trump’s not sending in Delta Force to kidnap a head of state, he’s imposing record tariffs or denigrating climate change anxieties as stuff and nonsense.

And given that most British governments struggle to walk and chew gum at the same time, Trump’s assault on the global order is almost certainly crowding out Starmer’s and the government’s ability to formulate and execute a compelling recovery programme for the UK in any case.

Worse still for Starmer himself, it seems highly implausible that many of you will give him the benefit of the doubt on any of this, because foreign policy is just something voters regard as a basic part of a PM’s job description - and voters don’t tend to reward premiers for just doing the job. Memo: They didn’t even reward Churchill for winning the Second World War.

There is an insult for Starmer to add to all this indignity, namely that his calculated refusal to criticise Trump, for what looks like a coach and horses driven through international law, alienates many actual and potential supporters on the left.

His Trump-philia encourages them to wear a Green or Lib Dem badge... (MORE - details)

[Syne]

Yep, if you're on the left, flanked by so many TDS sufferers, you should know better than try to fence-sit about Trump. Just comes off as spineless to both sides.

[confused2]

Yes.
Proles in the UK are still reeling from the shock of having (possibly) lower rail fares.

We're expecting to see Zelenski being trumped by Putin and Ukraine being run as a satellite of Moscow until order is restored.. another “I-can’t-believe-he-just-did-that” move. Instead of two large armies facing each other we might expect to see them facing the same way .. the wrong way (for us). Will Trump do a deal with his buddy Putin to maintain and restock weapons already supplied to Ukraine? Nobody knows.

Instead of things being run for the benefit of billions of people we're starting to see the politics of a few individuals in "You've-made-very-angry-now" mode - with nothing and no one to hold them back.

There's competing "Pretend-it-isn't-happening" and "Better-red-than-dead" camps. Putin wants his frozen assets back .. possibly including East Germany .. so .. so nothing.

Trench warfare is out - shock-and-awe is probably the way forward ("We-didn't-see-that-coming").

[stryder]

Politics in the UK has always been completely numb. Currently the only shock and awe that exists is Farage, which itself proves just how crap that will turn out considering his past leadership of UKIP and the Brexit that really didn't do much other than undermine the country further.

The country does need a decent wake up call in regards to leadership though.

From my POV we need to be dumping the party systems, they stink. If we want to be looking at a centristic system, we should be looking at replacing the Prime Minister with an AGI. At least it won't fall foul of name calling or be limited in what it can do if it's LLM is propped up by the rest of Government.

(Think of it as equating what should be done from what information is made available, and it wouldn't be open to bribery or being pushed in a corner by scare mongering)

Ideally I'd go even further, after all having people communicate with a PM AI through an LLM could build up a large data model for what people expect of their country and the people in it. This of course would have to be limited to those that are voters.

Different LLM's could potentially be created and voting on a new LLM could be done instead of voting in a new party. (Just remember that the AI can pull statistics on who gets complaints made, if they meet what they are going to do on time etc, so expect some government officials to get a dear john letter but of the firing kind.)

[Syne]

Ideally I'd go even further, after all having people communicate with a PM AI through an LLM could build up a large data model for what people expect of their country and the people in it. This of course would have to be limited to those that are voters.

Great way to get a tyranny of a majority, and with the increasing prevalence of Muslims in the UK, you could find yourselves under Sharia Law.

[stryder]

Ideally I'd go even further, after all having people communicate with a PM AI through an LLM could build up a large data model for what people expect of their country and the people in it. This of course would have to be limited to those that are voters.

Great way to get a tyranny of a majority, and with the increasing prevalence of Muslims in the UK, you could find yourselves under Sharia Law.

You shouldn't listen to that legacy social media, it's filled full of lies and flake news.

[Syne]

What, you don't have a ton of Muslims?
3.9 million with a 32% increase over ten years is a trend to watch.

[stryder]

What, you don't have a ton of Muslims?
3.9 million with a 32% increase over ten years is a trend to watch.

But how many of them are legal? How many of them are harbouring people that are currently working illegally? In other words they don't run the place, it just needs someone to go house cleaning and remove them.

[C C]

What, you don't have a ton of Muslims?
3.9 million with a 32% increase over ten years is a trend to watch.

They're largely concentrated in cities like London (circa one and a half million or more there), and that's where the disproportionate political clout comes from. Similar situation across Europe -- locate in metropolitan areas that are government, academic, and entertainment centers that are heavily influential with respect to the establishment. Sort of like "Little Mogadishu" in Minneapolis (adjacent Saint Paul being the state capital of Minnesota), with that neighborhood serving as a vote-seeking magnet for politicians like Tim Waltz.

The UK only has a few hundred thousand more Muslims than the US, but France features almost 7 million and Germany over 4 and a half million.

[Syne]

Your government doesn't seem capable of removing them.

Yeah, the UK "only has" about the same amount as the US, but in a vastly smaller population in an area the size of Oregon. Very true that, amassed in metro areas, they have an outsized influence... just like big leftist cities here in otherwise red states.