It’s fun that Keir Starmer has finally unveiled a personality – it’s just a shame it’s the radio edit of someone else’s. I’m sure you can guess whose.
Announcing plans to make it easier to build nuclear power stations last week, the prime minister was willingly drawn into some kind of call and response answer to a BBC question, fixing one eye on the cameras and gibbering: “I say: build, baby, build.” Yowch. Hope he sees this, king! On the other hand, this delivery slightly reminded me of Daniel Craig’s accent in Knives Out, of which one co-star opined: “I remember the first time he did that on set, there was kind of a moment of silence after he finished and just a smile on everyone’s face.” Mm. Likewise.
Anyway, we must leave Netflix’s most successful detective from … Kentucky, is it? … and return to Starmer, whose apparent desire to come off as a Chinese restaurant’s Donald Trump impersonator may well be putting a smile on the face of whoever in the White House is charged with monitoring the US-UK special relationship. (Please don’t picture a single novelty hamburger phone on a desk manned by Bryson DeChambeau.) The point is: Starmer likes American things now.
Many of us will have seen versions of this syndrome before, sometimes in acquaintances who adopt mid-Atlantic accents after a couple of drinks, or have perhaps gone on a two-week fly-drive to Orlando and admired “the can-do” so much that they were this close to getting a Route 66 tattoo before they flew home. Which, let’s face it, they can still do at that place next to the Sue Ryder when they’re waiting for the car to get its MOT on Thursday week.
As I say, having witnessed this before, we might have expected the prime minister’s next symptoms to be talking in a supercool way about “freeways” and “seltzer”, and saying “I could care less” when he meant he couldn’t. But no.
Instead, Starmer opted on Monday to release photos and footage of illegal migrants being escorted on to planes to be deported – just like the Trump administration did last week, would you believe. The White House version had far more of an eye on iconic image, of course, with a line of deportees stretching back from the maw of a military plane, while Starmer and the Home Office preferred to cast their montage as the “journey” of an illegal migrant, a phrase so reality-TV-esque that I half expected to find the PM standing at the plane steps with an iPad and the catchphrase “before you go, let’s have a look at your best bits”.
Trump has been in office for precisely 23 days, while Starmer seemingly spent about 23 years being the prime minister in waiting, repeatedly indicating to the British public that he had a huge number of ideas. A lot of these currently seem to have been boiled down to offering a bowdlerised, PG take on Trump’s R-rated blockbuster. Does anyone want to see that?
They might, with a different actor in the role. What we can say for sure is that no one believes it when it comes from Starmer. Trump can put some deportees on a plane and everyone calls him strong; Starmer does it, and social media lights up with people scoffing it’s just a publicity stunt.
In many ways, the only thing more guaranteed to backfire than trying to out-Trump Trump is trying to do a watered-down version of him to appeal just enough to some people – at the same time as being just acceptable enough not to drive others away. The president has his own laws of physics, which don’t apply to others. It goes without saying that you have to work with him, but doing so in a way that smells inauthentic to your own public may only make your situation worse. What’s Starmer going to do – shy away from the luxury hotel plan for Trump’s “Gaza Riviera”, but compromise by building a couple of competitively priced B&Bs?
In terms of seeming cool in front of the new cock of the world leaders’ WhatsApp group, though, it turns out Starmer could care very much. Or couldn’t, I suppose, depending on whether you’re reading this column in an American accent or an English one. He’s not the only one, obviously. There is something particularly hilarious about men who are not at all like Trump trying to act their version of Trumpishly. I felt I saw it again last week, when Peter Mandelson was asked about his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, and replied: “I’m not going to go into this. It’s an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off. OK?” Ooh! New style of diplomatic language just dropped. Ambassador, you are spoiling us, etc.
At time of writing, Starmer had yet to tell the nearest interviewer his favourite TV programme is Landman, but we do keep hearing that he has a great rapport with the US president built up in multiple phone calls. Please God they remain classified. I’m not sure I can handle the expected cringe of seeing a readout of their badinage, or – worse – the full record. During the last Trump presidency, the Washington Post published a leaked transcript of a phone call between the US leader and the then Australian premier Malcolm Turnbull. “I have had it,” fumed Trump by the end of this call. “I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.”
And yet – of course, of course – it was Turnbull for whom the call played badly, not Trump. Something for Downing Street’s would-be Apprentice candidate to bear in mind.
