Does any rational individual honestly think it’s a sensible idea to cut the money we spend on supporting victims of brutal conflicts around the world – the foreign aid budget – so this Labour Party government and Keir Starmer have a bit more money to spend on brutal conflicts around the world?
Notice I said “rational individual”, so this immediately rules out any Reform UK charity-begins-at-home loyalists that might’ve accidentally stumbled across my weekly column in the Canary.
Let’s be honest. The foreign aid budget is an easy target. It’s more a case of juicy apples, conveniently scattered across the ground than low-hanging fruit.
Foreign aid: the easiest of targets for Starmer
Foreign aid is used for lifesaving medicines, food, clean water, assistance for farmers, keeping women and girls safe, promoting peace, and has been used for so much more over the decades.
Are we really supposed to believe sabre-rattling Starmer’s abandonment of our global responsibilities is anything other than an act of utter desperation, designed to appease the racist warmongers, both home and abroad?
I’m genuinely surprised that right-wing Rachel from accounts didn’t suggest squeezing a few more quid out of Britain’s disabled people. We’ve always been a fantastic source of income down the years, regardless of the party that has been in power.
The cynic in me might just think that Starmer’s commitment to increase military spending will only be used to serve as the perfect excuse as to why honest Keir felt the need to break nearly every single promise that he ever made throughout his time as opposition leader.
How easy will it be for one cabinet minister after another to declare they would love to spend money on poor people, or public services, but someone has to make those “difficult decisions”, which in this case is a decision to prioritise arms over aid?
As if Keir Starmer’s pledges aren’t worthless enough already.
Promises, promises
On one hand, he will make entirely undeliverable promises in the hope of catching a few favourable headlines in his favourite right-wing tabloids, and then he will take it away with the other, all in the name of national security.
Do you remember when Keir Starmer promised to “cut bills by £300 on average and deliver real energy security”?
What about the promise of a “windfall tax on big oil and gas companies making £44,000 profit, in one minute, so we can put up to £400 back in people’s pockets”?
These promises from Keir Starmer have been met with huge increases in energy bills, council tax, and water bills, and that’s before we’ve even got on to the military welfare for Ukraine and a wholly unnecessary increase in defence spending.
It frustrates the hell out of me.
It wasn’t that long ago we had a Tory government finding temporary accommodation for thousands of people who were sleeping rough off the streets, and they did this in a matter of days.
Where there is political will, there is a way.
When a government wants to do something for the good of its people, it can. But governments of all persuasions choose not to look after its most vulnerable people because there’s more votes to be had in warmongering than there is to be had in providing an adequate level of social security.
The Starmer-Trump bromance: a flash in the pan
Despite what the corporate media say, Keir Starmer’s trip to see the tangerine tantrum at the White House wasn’t anything particularly special, unless you enjoy being reminded of the fact that Britain could fight its way out of a wet paper bag.
Murdoch’s Times would have you think the prime minister swam across the Atlantic wearing no more than his finest budgie smugglers, with a neatly laminated list of demands and another state visit for Trump, tightly gripped between his butt cheeks. Vom.
The Daily Mail went as far as talking of a lovely bromance between Donald Trump and Starmer. Will someone pass me the fucking sick bucket?
I don’t want to know what any of the mainstream client journalists have got to say about their client, Starmer. I have my own eyes and ears, and I also have my own toes that are still curling from the humiliating sight of a Labour prime minister sucking up to the malignant, loathsome Trump.
Fascist-charmer-meets-Starmer part one was a horrendous spectacle. You may call it diplomacy, and you are entitled to have that view, but what did Starmer actually achieve?
The Chagos Islands? Will somebody think of the 371 different species of coral? And what about the Coconut Crab with its leg span of more than one metre?
Seriously though, he swapped Trump’s approval for a state visit. Hardly a monumental victory for the serial loser, Starmer.
A trade deal? Show me this deal. Trump is either incredibly forgetful, like his predecessor, genocide Joe, or he’s a liar that changes his mind from one hour to the next.
I’m absolutely plumping for the latter.
Starmer: skating on thin ice
All it will take is one shit round of golf and Trump will take to Truth Social (or whatever it’s called) to call Starmer a communist despot and our trade deal will be forgotten quicker than you can call Zelensky a dictator, and then say you didn’t. Twice.
A successful visit would’ve been no visit whatsoever, but isolated Starmer walked into the circus as a clown, and left as a clown.
The one thing that Starmer really wanted from Trump was a cast iron guarantee that American forces would provide a security backstop in Ukraine. Without this guarantee, Britain and France would be sending 30,000 of our own lambs to the slaughter.
As it stands, the British army would run out of ammunition within a week of fighting a war. You don’t have to be a leading military strategist to come to the conclusion that we would get utterly obliterated without the support of a superpower.
Starmer didn’t get the assurances that he wanted and needed, but we’ll just ignore that and celebrate the decolonisation of the Coconut Crab and the possibility of a trade deal that nobody knows anything about.
I just hope Starmer told the president that his dad used to be a toolmaker, otherwise the whole trip was absolutely pointless.
Featured image via Rachael Swindon
