Out of Step

The right-wing press in this country really can't help themselves, can they?  If there's any opportunity, no matter how ill advised, to attack a Labour government, they'll seize upon it.  Witness their recent gleeful reporting on Trump's criticisms of Starmer for having actually shown a bit of backbone with regard to Iran - all trumpeted in huge headlines.  Yet, in this instance, they really have read the room badly and are quite out of step with the public.  Really badly.  The reality is that Trump remains hugely unpopular here in the UK, so that anything he says criticising Starmer is actually likely to bolster the PM's standing with the public.  More importantly, Starmer's position on Iran - not directly supporting the US and actually questioning the legality of Trump's actions - is actually pretty much in alignment with UK public opinion, as backed up by recent polls.  Tory leader Kemi Badenoch made the same mistake in the Commons - attacking Starmer for not getting involved in another war, when the public is overwhelming against the UK getting drawn into any more American wars.   Such a lack of judgement and connection with public sentiment is one of the main reasons, of course, that Badenoch and the Tories are essentially irrelevant right now.  But this is all part of the fundamental problem the right in the UK have: the Trump factor.

At a time when the UK's political discourse has been pulled so far to the right, having someone like Trump in the White House should be a boon to them.  He's enacting the sort of policies, both domestically and internationally, that the right-wing media and politicians wet their pants over.  The billionaires who own much of Britain's media would just love to have a UK government that gave them the sort of privileges and access to power that their US counterparts are getting under Trump.  Yet Trump is massively unpopular in the UK, making writing favourably about him, or speaking in support of his policies, represents a huge risk.  Politicians or newspapers  praising him risk alienating huge sections of their supporters or readers.  But every so often, they just can't help themselves.  They get so frustrated by not being able to say what they really want to say - that they just love Trump and all the evil he stands for - that they just can't keep their mouths shut.  Hence, we have the press revelling in Trump criticising Starmer for not supporting them in a war the UK public don't approve of and the Leader of the Opposition similarly lambasting the PM for failing to be Trump's lapdog, boasting that she would have been right there at America's side sparking another destabilising Middle Eastern conflict, despite Trump's unpopularity here.

But still they keep trying to find some stick in this unpopular war with which to beat the government.  They seem to think that they've found it in the UK's allegedly inadequate response to committing defence resources to protect its allies from the fall-out from Trump's latest adventurism.   In particular, they keep obsessing on that bloody Royal Navy destroyer which won't be sent to Cyprus for weeks, as if it is vital for the island's defence from stray Iranian drones.  Cyprus and various Gulf States, they claim, are complaining about the UK's lack of commitment.  All of which ignores the fact that the UK has a significant deployment of RAF resources at its base in Cyprus, including not just aircraft, but air defences which are probably more capable of defending the island than a single air defence destroyer.  But the French and the Greeks have sent support!  I heard some Cypriot rent-a-voice bewailing on the BBC today.  Yeah well, Greece is just next door and France has a naval base - Toulouse - on the Mediterranean coast, so it is hardly surprising that they can respond more quickly than the UK.  As for the various Gulf States allegedly upset with us - well, they are oil rich states who apparently aren't prepared to spend their money on their own defence and expect us to defend them instead, is that it?  As for the other issue that the right-wing media are harping on about - the parlous state of the UK's armed forces, particularly the navy - well, let's not forget that they got into that state thanks to fourteen years of Tory spending cuts - cuts by Tory governments that this self same right-wing press endorsed and cheered on.  Presumably they must also have supported those cuts.  So yah boo sucks!  Stick that in your collective pipes and smoke it!