You really couldn’t make it up. With the Prime Minister facing a maybe tipping point with catastrophic local election results in less than three weeks, another one’s just rocked up in the shape of the Peter Mandelson scandal. All this just as he’s trying to define himself as guardian of the nation’s security, and a world leader trying to clear up the mess created by the US President. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, there’s no question Sir Keir Starmer is on his sharpest knife-edge yet.
To explain the Mandy story in the simplest terms – he was chosen as Trump-whisperer-in-chief because he’s so good at dealing with dodgy characters.
And though his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ruled him out in the view of the spooks vetting him for the job his bosses at the Foreign Office overruled them.
Now that that department’s Sir Humphrey has paid for it with his own job the question hangs over Starmer like the Sword of Damocles – did he know about this? And if not, why not?
In short, according to all the opposition party leaders, he’s a liar. Or a nincompoop. Either way, he’s got to go. Now.
So will he? Poor Keir’s problem calls to mind Hamlet’s to be or not to be dilemma: ‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take up arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing end them.’
Goes without saying his enemies in rival camps, and a fair few in his own, are formed up like the assassination squad circling Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.
But before Starmer even gets his chance to slash back at them in Parliament he’s had to whip over to Paris to co-host a meeting of the group of forty other top bods he’s put together to scratch their heads about the Strait of Hormuz.
They were all bowled over by the sudden Iranian announcement that they’d opened it. But will it stay open? Best not hold your breath for the moment.
Even if it does, what’s already happened poses a huge problem for whoever ends up leading the Labour party.
Thanks to the Middle-East wars that Donald Trump has so kindly gifted us, economies across the world face dire consequences. And among developed western nations Britain looks set to be one of the hardest hit.
Because of Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway through which a fifth of all global oil and gas normally travels, price hikes in fuel are upon us. Swiftly followed, it seemed likely, by air travel problems and even food shortages.
That might sound extraordinary, but carbon dioxide gas is needed to produce, store and move around lots of stuff, including chicken and pork, and medical supplies.
So contingency plans have been drawn up to counter a worst-case scenario, gaps on supermarket shelves showing up as soon as June this year.
But the deeper worry is the hit to the British economy, just when things at long last looked like they might be picking up a bit.
Before the war started the respected International Monetary Fund had suggested growth here in UK was set to rise faster than in any of the other seven biggest
economies apart from the USA.
But now these same people have cut their forecast for us deeper than all of them.
Not like we’re on our own mind. A report from the United Nations has predicted that thirty-two million people across the globe will be pushed into poverty by the fighting.
More to the point, from Starmer’s point of view, is the hit in living standards we’re suffering here in Blighty. And the likelihood that voters will take it out on him, even
though it’s absolutely not his fault, in less than three weeks’ time.
Predictions about the town hall elections get gloomier by the day, with some saying Labour will lose nearly two-thousand council seats.
Also very much on the cards is the party losing control in the assembly in Wales. And Scotland, which opens the question of whether this could mean another crack at independence.
Oh happy days. God bless America and, leading the charge, the great saviour of mankind. That at least is how Donald Trump seemed to see himself when he
popped onto his website an image of himself as Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, you might be thinking, is he having a laugh?
The Daily Star newspaper certainly thought so when they ran the pic alongside the headline: ‘You’re not the Messiah you’re a very naughty boy,’ as someone once said.
Also a very silly boy, as he’s decided to declare war on the very popular, and as it happens first American, Pope. Which hasn’t gone down well with a big chunk of his own base. Zero surprise there.
But it’s so of a piece with many other late-night ranting splurges that the media mutterings across The Pond are getting ever louder that he’s not just naughty or silly but actually and palpably losing the plot.
Back in the 1930s the then Prez Franklin Roosevelt managed to keep largely hidden the fact that he needed a wheelchair to get around, thanks to a generally
compliant American media.
And it seems history’s repeating itself, only this time round these same august seekers after truth are cowed by threats of legal action, or at very least denial of
access.
But now they’re finally daring to at least murmur out, with the New York Times quoting a White House lawyer from Trump’s first term, who said he’s: ‘A man who is clearly insane.’ Adding his late-night posts: ‘Highlight the level of his insanity.’
And the Washington Post has weighed in, pointing out that: ‘His behaviour has become even more erratic.’
They also cite a conservative evangelic radio host who acknowledges: ‘He’s forcing his supporters into awkward places, and if they don’t support him, he attacks them. This is not a way to sustain a coalition.’ You could say that.
Certainly it’s become the norm, even though much of what he says makes no sense and he contradicts himself anyway within minutes, to hang on the man’s every word. Which is bonkers in itself, in the circs.
Still there’s nothing wrong with a bit of amiable eccentricity Stateside. Also chronicled by the Washington Post.
Steven Lawyer, who is in fact a lawyer, first met Bebe in a pet shop in Florida six years ago. And the deal was sealed when the playful parakeet stood on his fingers and gripped his son’s hat with his beak.
Bebe now follows him everywhere, and when his mobile goes off he flies up to it and pecks at the screen, sometimes accepting the call, sometimes declining it. Not sure what informs that choice.
But he’s cool with whatever the adventurous Mr Lawyer gets up to, including underwater swimming. For which he even has his own custom-built mini-submarine. This is straight up, honest.
He also sleeps on the man’s chest at night, travels everywhere with him by day and delights in lifting other people’s moods by fluttering over and landing on their shoulder.
He has posed for thousands of selfies, Lawyer said. ‘He’s my little ambassador of smiles.’ That, you have to admit, is seriously cute.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
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Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.