As Keir Starmer slithers back into the saddle of his limp lacklustre leadership, there has been a deluge of messages from No.10. The sort of messages that presumably are supposed to instil a warm glow in the populace and inspire it to heave to and look forward to a sunnier easier future. What the circling sharks of Starmer’s own party think of his messaging remains to be seen.
The fact that these messages are weakly redolent of the Labour Party’s adopted anthem for the 1997 election ‘Things can only get better’ helps them not one jot. Add in the fact that Starmer’s government seems to either do things which weren’t in its manifesto, or not do things which were, does not inspire confidence. The PM is not averse to the odd U-turn but since those are by nature unexpected and turn out to be partial in intent, that isn’t much help either.
Amongst others, he tweeted:
‘This year, you will start to feel our promise of change. £150 off the average energy bill from April. Your public services will be improved. Your community will see more funding – restoring local pride. We are getting Britain back on track.’
As now widely accepted, the quoted figure of £150 being saved has no basis in reality. In fact, due to Ofgem raising the energy price cap from January 2026, it’s likely most British households will spend more on energy not less.
Energy Secretary Miliband is of course at the forefront of the government pledge of around £22billion to support the early deployment of Carbon Capture. Meanwhile the best possible natural source of carbon capture – trees – are being hacked down to build houses for the ever-burgeoning population, and to install vast swathes of wind turbines and solar panels – the latter being mostly made in China which is the world’s largest carbon emitter. Within those houses, gas boilers will be verboten in favour of heat pumps which typically cost £11,000 – as opposed to £4,000 for a good old gas boiler, and given that they’re powered by electricity are likely to cost more to run. House builders are also being urged to include swift boxes. Too bad then that hundreds of thousands of swifts and other birds on the ‘ornithological red list’ are the major victims of, yes, wind turbines.
Hapless Starmer and Reeves and the legions of civil servants who work with them might listen to the views of 48 leading economists who have just indicated in an annual Times Economic Survey that unemployment will climb to an 11-year high this year and that the economy is ‘moribund’. With businesses being hit by a raft of tax increases and employment rights, the future is not actually looking terribly bright.
Here in Crowborough the ninth consecutive march took place last Sunday, in protest against the Home Office plan to place up to 600 illegal migrants in an army training camp previously used by cadets. At least 1000 residents marched through the town in spite of freezing conditions. A few police officers were as usual in attendance, but of course there were no problems – in spite of people waving that dodgy symbol of patriotism i.e., the Union Jack. At some point a number of police were seen entering a local hostelry in some haste, but it turned out that was to avail themselves of the facilities.
Those who marched in freezing conditions would be especially interested to learn of the acknowledgement from the PM that he knows ‘people are frustrated’. He’s right there.
With the cost of everything we use and consume increasing, the minds of Crowborough residents might reasonably rage over the largesse extended to the anticipated residents of Crowborough camp. As the new year begins, the average Crowborough resident will be paying income tax, national insurance, council tax, fuel duty, VAT on goods and services – as well as a TV licence, car tax and house insurance, not to speak of inheritance tax or stamp duty if that should arise.
However, the men who will be placed in Crowborough camp will not be required to pay for any of those things – in spite of having used illegal means to enter a country to which they have never contributed. They will be housed and fully catered for, be transported, have access to health care and dentistry and legal advice, and have TV + other activities. Whilst in the camp they will not be required to work or contribute to society in any way. If, as a proportion do, they choose to abscond and work illegally, they will continue to not contribute anything. The maxim ‘If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck…’ comes to mind.
A total of 41,472 illegal migrants arrived in the UK in 2025, a 13% increase on the previous year. All of them will receive a similar package to that above. Starmer also stated that ‘Asylum hotels will be closed well before the end of the parliament’ (i.e., certainly not before the end of his doomed leadership…). So where exactly will all those illegal entrants, not to mention legal migrants, go? Perhaps that thought hadn’t crossed his desk. As already admitted by the Home Office, army training camps like Crowborough do not in fact provide a better financial solution, much less a societal one.
Given Starmer’s propensity not to be aware of things, it’s rather unlikely that he has knowledge – such as he would own up to – of the Crowborough situation, or even where we are located. After all, he reputedly has faint knowledge of a proportion of his MPs, much less where their constituencies are – so what hope Crowborough? We also have a conservative MP – who happens to be Madam Deputy Speaker.
Starmer talks of ‘restoring local pride’. Well, thanks Keir, but we’re a bit ahead of the curve on that one. If things do get better, it will not be in any sense whatsoever thanks to you and your government. On the contrary, as in Crowborough, it will be due to people’s efforts and their voices. Come to think of it, a wave of much maligned ‘populism’ might go down a treat…
Madeleine Gillies is a Crowborough resident with a career in language teaching in the UK and abroad.
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Does a tyrant ever read what you (and thousands like you) write? And does he care? Of course not. He may be a pudding face, blinking behind his glasses- ostensibly a harmless podge – but he is a real tyrant, evil like all tyrants. He has no democratic mandate for what he is doing. And the Conservatives before him were almost the same. Tyrants understand only one thing – force. He will bulldoze everything that he wants through Parliament with his huge majority. Most Labour MPs support his tyranny. If there were to be a successful Labour coup against him, it would only mean his tyranny would be replaced by another’s.
So what is the answer? Use against him the only thing he understands – force. Yes, kindly, polite, gentle people have to change their habits of a lifetime, they have to organise, and they have to plot, and they must do things they have never done before. Otherwise, you and they will be squashed like insects underfoot.
Yes, we know he is an evil tyrant, a liar and has just about every nasty trait you can think of. It would be helpful if you could be a bit more specific regarding what you mean by ‘changing habits of a lifetime’, and how exactly this would work.
Shoot the cunt in the guts and let him die in agony.
All true, but IMHO a mixed up article in that all are well aware of Crowborough’s concerns and sympathise to a degree – but have up North been subjected to our own unwanted ‘cultural enrichment’ now for years and suffer just the same from this Government as everywhere else does.