It’s often said you can tell when a politician is lying because his or her lips move.
This old joke reflects the public’s perception that our elected representatives are forever breaking their promises.
The trouble is, Sir Keir Starmer seems to regard it not as a wisecrack, but as an instruction to be faithfully obeyed.
His latest duplicity concerns the plight of 3.8million women who claim they lost thousands of pounds because of bungled increases to the state pension age.
In opposition, Labour supported the so-called Waspi women campaign to put right this wrong. As recently as 2022 Sir Keir fumed they had suffered an ‘historic injustice’ and deserved ‘fair and fast’ compensation.
But now in No 10, Sir Keir has U-turned and rejected an ombudsman’s recommendation that the affected women should get payouts.
Given the fragility of the nation’s finances, the Prime Minister is surely right to decide the £10.5billion bill would be unaffordable.
That, though, is beside the point. He knew in opposition the cost would be huge, yet still he led voters to believe Labour would write the cheque. His own MPs are now in open revolt against this betrayal. But can they, hand on heart, say they’re surprised?
He’s jettisoned so many supposedly cast-iron guarantees it’s positively dizzying.
He promised to protect the winter fuel payment, but once in power stripped it from pensioners, leaving many to shiver.
He vowed not to impose ruinous inheritance tax on farms, but is doing so. And he insisted he would not overturn Brexit – yet is trying to drag us back into the EU’s orbit.
Any half-decent person would be mortified to be repeatedly exposed on double standards and misrepresentations.
But while Sir Keir may believe he can do no wrong, his dire poll ratings suggest otherwise. He personifies the reason voters are so fed up with the Westminster class – and are turning to populist parties in their droves.
Derailing growth
Foranother striking example of Sir Keir telling an enormous whopper, look no further than the Commons yesterday.
Labour, he said, had stabilised the economy. In fact, his government is derailing it. Troubling figures show inflation climbed to 2.6 per cent in November.
It shouldn’t take an economist to know that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s hikes in employers’ National Insurance, big pay rises to the public sector, and splurge on borrowing and spending would put up prices.
With growth contracting, job cuts surging and fears of rising unemployment, Britain is on recession watch.
Compare this with the Tories’ final weeks in power. Then, the economy was growing healthily and inflation was below 2 per cent.
Labour inherited the green shoots of recovery. But with its downbeat rhetoric and quasi-Marxist policies, the Government has trampled them into the dirt.
Dangerous naivety
Ms Reeves will touch down in China next month to pay her respects to the Communist regime – the first British chancellor to do so since 2019.
With growth as her main goal, the world’s second-largest economy is obviously alluring. China has plenty of money to invest.
But the revelation that an alleged Chinese spy had infiltrated the highest echelons of the British establishment should give Ms Reeves pause for thought.
Embracing China only gives it a new opportunity to spy, steal intellectual property and increase its hold over us. When will we start treating Beijing with kid gloves?