DAN HODGES: Starmer’s first 100 days present he shares Blair’s vices

Many years ago I was speaking to someone who had just returned from a reception at Tony Blair’s Downing Street. ‘How was it?’ I asked. They laughed. ‘Same as always. He arrived, took a look around the room, spotted the richest man, and made a bee-line for him.’

Fast forward to 2024. We have another Labour Prime Minister in No.10. And again, he’s making a bee-line for the richest man in the room.

Or, in the case of Taylor Swift, the richest woman. This morning our papers and news bulletins are filled with the revelation that Sir Keir enjoyed a private audience with the pop-star following her Wembley gig on August 20.

Sources have revealed Sir Keir and his wife Victoria (pictured) were granted a private audience with Taylor Swift on August 20 – after he received tickets and hospitality from her record label 

According to No 10, the meeting was just another of those happy coincidences that have come to define the first hundred days of the Starmer premiership. Yes, a source confirmed, Swift and her entourage had been ferried to Wembley by a blue-light police escort. And yes, Starmer’s Chief of Staff Sue Gray had been in contact with Swift’s mother in the days running up to the gig to discuss her transportation.

But, the beleaguered aide insisted, there was no connection between that and the private audience. And the decision to provide a blue-light escort had been solely ‘an operational matter for Scotland Yard’.

Now, obviously, No 10 are again taking the British people for fools. It’s blatantly obvious the police didn’t take the decision, because if they had done there would have been no need for Gray to intervene. Yes, it further underlines the appalling political mismanagement within Downing Street that another cronyism and freebie scandal has been allowed to drag on for days. And yes, it further underlines Starmer’s hypocrisy, after spending years hammering the Tories for their own sleaze, and pledging – laughably – to clean it up.

But people are missing a more fundamental point. When the Prime Minister was elected he pledged ‘a Government of service’. And as the Swiftgate scandal has shown, Keir Starmer is only too happy to lay on an exceptional blue-light, door-to-door service. So long as you’re rich.

Taylor Swift performs during the Eras tour at Wembley Stadium in August

Take the P&O debacle. A week ago the Government published its Employment Right’s Bill. Part of that legislation included a clause to close the loophole that allowed P&O to summarily dismiss 800 skilled British seafarers, and replace them with cut-price agency workers.

To mark the move – which had cross-party support – Transport Secretary Lou Haigh and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner released a statement that said: ‘The mass sacking by P&O Ferries was a national scandal which can never be allowed to happen again. These measures will make sure it doesn’t.’ A statement, by the way, that had been formally signed off by No 10.

But then P&O’s owner Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem picked up the phone. Sulayem has net worth estimated at $7.5 billion. And he wasn’t happy. He had been due to attend Keir Starmer’s big investment summit. But that was now off.

At which point Downing Street promptly threw Haigh and Rayner under a bus. Or a cross channel ferry. The comments did not reflect the view of the Government. They were Haigh and Rayner’s ‘personal views’, the Prime Minister explained. Sulayem duly put his gold-plated toys back in his pram, and attended the conference.

Some people attempted to paint the whole saga as an example of how Keir Starmer is some sort of crypto-Communist. But the opposite is true. Like his predecessor Tony Blair, since he became Labour leader he has yet to meet a rich business executive who doesn’t immediately make him reach for his forelock.

Look at the Lord Alli farrago. As Starmer was being buried beneath an avalanche of suits and glasses and flats and dresses, the line from No 10 remained the same. ‘Lord Alli is a friend. He didn’t ask for anything in return.’

P&O’s owner Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who has a net worth estimated at $7.5 billion

But it’s odd. Because Lord Alli was, we were told, also Blair’s friend. And Peter Mandelson’s friend.

So what was the connection? Did they all hang out the same pub together? Meet up doing a few weights down the gym? Bump into one another over the fruit and veg at Tesco?

No. Lord Alli is rich. And if you’re rich, you can find a way of inserting yourself into the Prime Minister’s orbit. Labour. Tory. It doesn’t really make much difference.

‘Aha!’ some of Starmer’s critics have exclaimed this week, ‘what about Elon Musk? The Government didn’t invite him to the investment summit because he said some hurty words about Starmer on X (formerly Twitter)!’ But Musk didn’t say some hurty words. What he actually said was ‘Civil war [in the UK] is inevitable.’

Setting aside the incendiary nature of those comments given their proximity to the riots, no government of any persuasion could seriously invite to a summit designed to attract business to the UK someone who at any moment could start mouthing off about the UK teetering on the brink of becoming the new Somalia.

But look what Ministers did next. They rushed to the airwaves to explain how no offence was meant, and if Musk would like to put forward a concrete investment plan, he would be welcome with open arms.

To be fair to Keir Starmer, he has never hidden how seductive he finds it rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful. ‘Davos or Westminster?’ he was asked in January 2003. ‘Davos,’ he replied. ‘Westminster is too constrained. It’s closed.’

Starmer would claim that his infatuation with wealth is born out of political necessity. A need to show his party has moved on from the excesses of Corbynism. And to secure the vital investment necessary to deliver for the British people.

But the problem is, that’s not where the British people are any more. As the Brexit referendum showed, they’re sick of the forelock tugging. They’ve had their fill of being told by rich corporate executives what is in their best interests.

They saw a parade of businessman and celebrities lining up to tell them: ‘Vote Remain or else.’ And the response was: ‘No thanks. We’re not dancing to your tune any more.’

 As Starmer was being buried beneath an avalanche of suits and glasses and flats and dresses, the line from No 10 remained the same. ‘Lord Alli  (pictured) is a friend. He didn’t ask for anything in return.’

Rightly. Britain needs wealth creators. It needs entrepreneurs. But it needs something else. It needs a government that will also stand up for ordinary working men and women. And say to the Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem: ‘If you’re prepared to treat your workers with dignity and respect and pay them a decent wage for a decent days labour, you’re welcome here. We will roll out the red carpet for you. Make as much profit as you can. But if you’re not, then there’s the door.’

This is the real politics of the moment. Explaining to the big corporates that we see through them now. That the days when they could launder their reputations with a pro-Trans tweet or a glossy brochure about environmental sustainability, while simultaneously nailing their workforces to the wall, are over.

Keir Starmer is not the first Prime Minister to fall for the allure of celebrity, wealth and power. And he won’t be the last.

But he was elected on a promise to be different.

Sir Keir’s first hundreds days have been marked by an addiction to the very vices that undermined his predecessors. And he needs to shake them off.