The cowardly dodger of Downing Street

Britain's prime minister has made his country irrelevant on the world stage

President Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 meeting last week

This is an expanded version of my column in today’s Times (£).

Sir Keir Starmer’s defining characteristic is lack of leadership.

It’s not just the British prime minister’s lacklustre manner, his pedantry, his absence of inspiring rhetoric. It’s that he so often says one thing that’s promptly undermined by the next thing; that he ducks saying what he actually believes; and even when he does vouchsafe this, fails to follow through by leading from the front.

Last week, two momentous pieces of legislation were approved by the House of Commons.

The assisted dying bill, proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, narrowly passed its third reading and now proceeds into the House of Lords. A few days earlier, MPs voted to decriminalise abortion for women who terminate their pregnancy after 24 weeks or without the approval of two doctors.

Both were immensely consequential measures which challenge fundamental moral precepts. Neither has been treated by the government with anything like the seriousness it deserves. Starmer has tried to run away from both; and on the issue of Iran, his cowardice has harmed Britain on the world stage.