Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”
Starmer’s hagiographer Tom Baldwin has scaled back his support for the Prime Minister. Baldy says – give Starmer one year please…
Baldwin admits in a piece for The New World that sacking Olly Robbins “has done the prime minister real – potentially lethal – harm.” No last shot at that Chief of Staff job then…
He also says that sacking so many people and taking no responsibility whatsoever “seems rather too typical of his behaviour as prime minister.” When even your best mate is saying it…
In the crescendo of Baldwin’s piece, which says Starmer was at his worst when he strayed into “faux populism” by talking about immigration, the PM’s mate says he should be allowed to stay for a year:
“Although insisting at the weekend that he would fight on to the next election, perhaps the better solution right now is to leave open the question of when or if Starmer will quit by setting out a programme around which Labour could unite for the next year. A big “fight back” speech is already in the works based around security and “keeping the country safe”. Maybe that could include measures that would really make people sit up and take notice such as beginning negotiations now for a pledge in Labour’s next manifesto on rejoining the European Union without crossing any “red lines” from the last one, or scrapping the triple lock for pensioners so that there is money to get young people off benefits and back into work.”
First of all he appears to suggest there that Labour should campaign to rejoin the EU fully while staying out of the single market, customs union, and engaging freedom of movement. The reality in which Tom Baldwin lives is a fascinating place…
He ends his piece by saying: “Neither the prime minister nor this government can carry on with more of the same.” The bus of plainly obvious reality is hurtling towards Starmer’s last colonnades…
Crisis meetings are going on in Downing Street at the highest level. Senior No10 staff are working overtime on damage control…
It has been noted by observers inside No10 that some high-level meetings are taking place without the Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney. The PLP’s demands for McSweeney’s head have this week reached fever pitch over his role in appointing Peter Mandelson…
Insiders tell Guido that some top-level staff inside Starmer’s operation have privately discussed a removal of McSweeney and are advising the PM on that basis. A Downing Street source said: “It’s unclear how Morgan will react and still unclear if the PM will do all of this.” Starmer has resisted pressure from top Blairite aides to sack the McIavelli before…
Starmer watchers have long tried to game how long the PM would survive without the man who delivered him to Downing Street. Tom Baldwin is licking his lips…
Guido hears Downing Street staff are looking at proposals produced by activist ex-PM Gordon Brown for vetting reform. The ex-PM is this weekend running an intensive political cover operation for Starmer, insisting both he and the PM were both “betrayed” and “misled” by Mandelson…
Brown proposes, among other things in his personal wish list, implementing an independent anti-corruption commission appointed by parliament, US Senate-style parliamentary grillings of appointees to major posts, and statutory powers for the new ethics and integrity commission. Guido hears discussions are also taking place with regard to changes to the No10 political operation that would bolster the influence of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Downing Street…
Paul Ovenden, Downing Street’s Director of Political Strategy from the election to September last year, has levelled his guns at the potent pro-EU movement inside Labour. Which is currently at the peak of a comms wave aimed at putting Starmer on the path to rejoin…
Ovenden has popped up in the Times and now the New Statesman to settle scores. He says of the pro-rejoin cabal:
“You don’t need to be a psephologist to know that the vast bulk of Labour MPs and members would dearly love to rejoin the EU. I disagree with them but have never doubted the sincerity of their belief or their reasoning. However, the discussions swirling around the party about rejoining the customs union or re-entering the single market are the arguments of 2016, not 2026. They are false promises that will be exposed by reality.
Not only would Britain crawling back to the EU from a position of weakness diminish us, but there is also no reason to think the Union would even welcome us at a time when Eurosceptic parties lead many polls and France faces an era-defining presidential election. If your goal is to rejoin the EU – and let’s be clear, that is what these arguments are about – then at least have a plan to do it from a position that does not leave the UK locked outside the rooms where decisions on its trade and industry are made.”
This is an attack on Tim Allan, Number 10 Communications Director, as well as his outriders Tom Baldwin (Starmer’s hagiographer) and Alastair Campbell. They and others in government think putting Britain at the feet of the EU where it can be repeatedly slapped by the bloc is a good idea…
Labour’s experience of ever-closer union with the EU has so far been chastening for government figures paying attention to the high price the bloc is extracting for anything substantial. Like with everything else, ‘not being the Tories’ does not an improved position make…
You know a failing government is losing the plot when it starts to blame the media for literally all of its problems. Under new spin supremo Tim Allan, No10 is blind to the main cause of its unpopularity which is, er, ‘the boss’ Keir Starmer himself…
First there was the long-read tantrum by Starmer’s hagiographer Tom Baldwin earlier this month. The potty-mouthed former Times hack ranted at the navel-gazing of the lobby (fair enough) but lost it at days “filled with stories about leaks” and a general focus on the government’s incompetence. As Guido asked at the time, has the Government tried not being s*it?
Now boomer Blair-era outrider Peter Hyman – a close associate of Baldwin and Allan – has posted on Substack:
“Journalism is about questions. And over time, particularly in politics, they have changed. Political interviews have become far more about the Westminster bubble not the real world. Journalists are too often chasing a gotcha moment, trying to get a response to the ‘story of the day’, wanting, ‘a good clip for socials,’ or trying to get the next juicy nugget of the political soap opera. All of this has the underlying question: “Why is this lying b*stard lying to me?” (in Jeremy Paxman’s words) – and assumes the public have no interest in substance.”
The Starmer press operation is disappearing up its own backside…
Starmer’s hagiographer and close friend Tom Baldwin has published 1,300 words in the little-read New European ranting about how the government is getting a hard time from journalists. Has the government tried not being sh*t…
Apart from airing the usual criticisms of the Lobby system, Baldwin alleges that political journalists are gratuitously on the attack:
‘And now, as the government grapples with policy dilemmas that got scant coverage before it was elected, we seem stuck in a loop of “inside Westminster” reporting about the finances of this politician, the influence of that adviser, or often the journalists themselves. The days following November’s budget were filled with stories about leaks, rather than what it meant for living standards, and the BBC’s political editor’s portentous verdict that “after a careful examination of the facts on your behalf” the public was misled.’
Here Baldwin complains that hacks – the majority of whom publish exactly what they are told by the government – didn’t regurgitate Labour lines about living standards in the Budget, instead reporting on what is viewed as the most shambolic finance policy announcement process in modern political history. It had meaningful effects on economic output. Baldwin’s contribution to Budget reporting was to uncritically interview Reeves and let her complain about ‘mansplaining’…
The Labour outrider goes on:
“The Lobby’s scrutiny is intense but generally about political performance or sometimes standards of behaviour and personal probity. Such things matter in any democracy, but can you name the last minister who was forced to resign over a failing public service, the faltering economy or some preventable disaster abroad rather than some accident in the political village?”
What Baldwin ignores is that policy failure is below the threshold for resignation. If ministers resigned for failures in this government’s policies, there would be none left…
Baldwin’s high-flying career as a journalist was arguably more lethal for the trade’s reputation than any Lobby reporter’s is now. He is close to Downing Street Communications Director Tim Allan, who halved the number of briefings hacks would receive from Starmer’s spokesman. Baldwin mocks them for this. No surer sign that Labour is rattled…
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”