The public has reacted with scorn to Sir Keir Starmer’s first speech as Prime Minister.
The Labour PM’s measured tone especially tickled some viewers – including one who thought he sounded like a tired mother during a holiday trip with the kids.
Others thought he sounded like a headteacher reading out the canteen rules and was ‘painfully dull’ with ‘all platitudes and no detail’.
Another joked ‘if you don’t commit and tell us what your plans are you can’t fail – good tactic’.
Keir Starmer warned of ‘tough decisions’ looming and tried to stop people calling him ‘PM’ today as he kicked off his Red revolution.
At his first press conference in Downing Street, the Labour leader said journalists could call him ‘Keir’ as he acknowledged that his government will be ‘judged on actions not on words’.
He said the government will need to make ‘tough decisions and take them early’ – saying that there would be ‘raw honesty’ about what needs to be done, although he denied that meant tax hikes.
Instead he stressed that crime could be an area, after it emerged his new prisons minister has suggested two-thirds of people in jail should not be there. Sir Keir said there were ‘too many prisoners, not enough prisons’.
Sir Keir also confirmed that the Rwanda policy pursued by Rishi Sunak was ‘dead and buried’.
Asked if he was getting used to being referred to as ‘Prime Minister’, Sir Keir chuckled and said: ‘I’m very happy to be called Keir or Prime Minister.’
Social media user Duncan Wisbey mocked Starmer in a video online.
He said: ‘I was watching Keir Starmer’s speech from Downing Street earlier with that very measured tone of a few words and these pauses in between.
‘I was thinking, ”where have I heard this tone of voice before” and I realised it’s a really tired mother on holiday just having a words with her kids.’
Users on social media told the new Prime Minister – the first from Labour in 14 years – that he should ‘talk to the camera, not your notes’.
Another slated him for saying the word ‘um’ too often during his first speech from Non 10 Downing Street.
In his first speech on Downing Street, Sir Keir said the British people had voted ‘decisively for change’.
He said the country could ‘move forward together’ as Labour took office following 14 years of Conservative rule.
Mr Streeting posted on social media last night: ‘I have just spoken over the phone with the BMA junior doctors committee, and I can announce that talks to end their industrial action will begin next week.
‘We promised during the campaign that we would begin negotiations as a matter of urgency, and that is what we are doing.’