The Stupid Lies of Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer likes to present himself as the decent man in politics: the former Director of Public Prosecutions, the lawyer who values evidence and rectitude above all, the antithesis of the slick spin-doctor or the blustering populist. “I’m not a politician,” he told anyone who’d listen during the 2024 election campaign, “I’m a public servant.” The public, we were assured, could trust him because he was honest to a fault, and it was often claimed “The grown-ups were back in charge”. 

The record, however, tells a different story. Starmer does not simply dissemble in the ordinary way of politicians. He insults the intelligence of the British people with lies so clumsy, so transparent, and so easily disproved that they reveal contempt for the very electorate he claims to serve. Not for Sir Keir the elegant evasions of a Disraeli or the theatrical whoppers of a Johnson (“Release the sausages” aside) – Starmer’s mendacity is delivered with the pious sanctimony of a man foolish enough to believe his own press releases. That is what makes them so galling. 

Chicks with dicks

Ukrainian rentboys in Lord Alli’s haute couture notwithstanding, no one has ever got more mileage out of unconvincing men in dresses than Sir Keir Starmer. In 2022, desperate to to lead a party captured by gender ideology, Starmer confidently declared “transwomen are women”, and that this was “actually the law.” Fast-forward to the Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling that a woman is, legally and biologically, an adult female. Suddenly the Prime Minister discovered — if not his own testicles, at least everyone else’s. “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear” Starmer stated, with obvious regret. The shift was presented as consistency. It was nothing of the sort.

My ‘number one’ priority

Clichés obviously go hand-in-hand with political careers, and I daresay all of us have certain phrases upon which we tend to over-rely. Keir Starmer however, is a man who famously cannot operate without a script — even when that script is an unmitigated disaster. While “My dad was a toolmaker”, “we followed the rules” and “smash the gangs” are obvious Starmer bread and butter, my personal favourite is his employment of  the “my number one priority” tope — which invariably turns out to be whatever he is discussing at the time. Off the top of my head, wealth creation, the cost of living, protecting British lives, hospital conditions and, naturally, violence against women and girls are all simultaneously his number one priority. One ought not need to say it, but when everything is your priority, nothing is. 

“Muslims are a success story when it comes to diversity”

Starmer has repeatedly framed the ‘Muslim community’ in glowing, devotional and frankly servile terms during his tenure as PM. While Sir Keir may actually be right to claim Muslims are “the face of modern Britain”, that isn’t quite the recommendation he seems to think it is. With his own government beset by a ‘grooming gang’ epidemic which even Labour can no longer cover-up, increased Islamic extremism, sectarian voting, flagrant hostility to and attacks upon the Jewish community, and demands for a parallel legal system, Starmer’s rhetorical sleight-of-hand convinces no one outside the Westminster bubble — and, I daresay, not too many inside it either. 

Pretending not to know Axel Rudakubana’s terror links

In the wake of the Southport massacred, the authorities and the government repeated the lie that the attack was not terror related, and subsequently denied there was a cover-up. When forced to admit that he did in fact know the details about Rudakubana (ricin, Al Qaeda manual, referrals to Prevent) Starmer himself, was keen to hide behind the legal niceties of sub judice and the desire to avoid compromising a trial. This is unfortunate of course, because in the rare event that the perpetrators of mass slaughter are middle-aged, Tommy Robinson supporting white males, we have their name, birth certificate and political affiliations well before the Six O’clock news. 

The “stolen phone” that just happened to contain the Mandelson messages

Perhaps the stupidest lie of all, is the insistence that the government-issued phone of Starmer’s then-chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was stolen, just before it could give evidence relating to the appointment (and later sacking) of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. Starmer’s response to suggestions that this was rather convenient? “A little bit far-fetched” to imagine any connection. Conveniently, Mandelson was not initially asked to hand over his own personal phone messages. The public, with its lived experience of political self-preservation, is entitled to raise at least one eyebrow, if not two.

For the record, I don’t believe for a second that McSweeney’s phone was ‘stolen’, at least in the conventional sense. I believe a ‘call’ was made to the Old Bill, who promptly took the unusual step of revealing the transcript. While obviously fantastically frustrated at their inability to incriminate themselves, no one involved seems to have considered the possibility of forcing the phone companies to reveal the data; urging Mandelson to open his phone; locating the CCTV of the theft; or taking the ignominious decision to request the phone’s backup. Curiously though, the administration did consider it worth suspending the whip from Labour MP Karl Turner, when he reached a similar conclusion. 

The honest man ‘above’ politics

I could go on all night: Chagos, U-turns, winter fuel, the Budget, the refusal to answer PMQs… These are all crap lies, sold with the energy of a leader who cannot fathom the plebs daring to question his integrity. 

But the idea that Starmer is somehow beyond reproach is the meta-lie. Starmer’s entire brand rests on being the decent, forensic, non-political public servant. Yet the record shows a man who changes his mind when the polls shift, who deploys lawyerly language to obscure rather than illuminate, and who expects the public to accept obvious contradictions without complaint.

He insults the intelligence of voters who can see the gap between what he says and what is happening in front of their eyes: the boats still crossing, the women’s safety pledge ringing hollow, the sudden conversion on the definition of a woman, and the suspiciously timed “theft” of a phone containing inconvenient messages.

Britain has had dishonest Prime Ministers before, and will continue to do so for as long as the office remains. But personally, I prefer my PMs to be either honestly flawed or at least competent liars – ones you are tempted to believe. That Starmer is a crap liar is bad; that he appears unwilling to learn is worse still; and that he accompanies his primary school level deceit with grating sanctimony, is unforgivable. 

The question now before the electorate is not whether Starmer is a habitual liar, but how long the British people will congregate in his church of sanctimonious incompetence. 

Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West and The Frank Report, which you should probably subscribe to.

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(Photograph: Number 10, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

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