Sir Keir Starmer is all smiles as he schmoozes with the King

Sir Keir Starmer was all smiles as he shared a joke with the King at a formal dinner reception on Monday following the Government’s International Investment Summit.

The Prime Minister was pictured schmoozing with the stars, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Elton John — who performed at the event. 

Photographs showed the King laughing while speaking with Sir Keir before he went on to mingle and shake hands with international business leaders at the reception held at St Paul’s Cathedral. 

It comes as Charles was given the cold shoulder by Australia’s six state premiers who all decline an invitation to attend a welcome reception for the King and Queen ahead of their tour of the country this week.

The King has put his cancer treatment on hold to ensure the six-day trip can go ahead, and alongside the Queen, will attend a range of events aimed at fostering relationships between communities.

The visit includes a reception in Canberra later this week, but the six state premiers — of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania —  have said they are unable to attend.

Bev McArthur of the Australian Monarchist League labelled the premier’s actions as ‘insulting’ and said: ‘They should just take off their republican hats, make the short trip to Canberra, say ‘hi and thank you for coming to Australia’.’

Victoria’s premier Jacinta Allan last week said she could not attend because she had a cabinet meeting. Her deputy, Ben Carroll, also refused the invitation, meaning Ms Allan’s parliamentary secretary Nick Staikos will represent the state. 

Queensland premier Steven Miles said he could not attend because he was currently working on his election campaign, while Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff said he was on a US trade mission.

South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas and New South Wales premier Chris Minns also said they were attending a cabinet meeting.  And a spokesperson for Western Australia‘s premier Roger Cook said he had ‘other commitments’. 

Bev McArthur told the BBC: ‘The failure of state premiers to attend the reception in Canberra is completely indefensible’, as she accused them of ‘gesture-led politics’. 

She told the newspaper she remains unconvinced by the excuses from the regional heads of government, which included having cabinet meetings and other commitments, and told the BBC it was ‘petty’ and ‘inhospitable’. 

Buckingham Palace has not commented on the row.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir kicked off a glitzy UK investment summit today telling businesses it is a ‘great moment to invest in Britain’.

The PM struck an upbeat tone as he addressed hundreds of senior figures at the Guildhall in London – hoping to drum up tens of billions of pounds for the economy.

He insisted the government was ‘stable’ after Brexit ‘circus’ and would ‘rip out bureaucracy’ and do ‘everything in my power to galvanise growth’.

But he also had a stark message about the need to be ‘tough’ on the public finances – with fears of a looming ‘tax bomb’ in the Budget.

Businesses have been warning that hiking their element of national insurance and levies on capital gains would be a ‘tax on jobs’.

There are also fears that imposing NICs on employers’ pension contributions – which could raise up to £17billion a year for the Treasury – would hammer retirement funds and hamper investment.

Sir Keir also received a stern message from former Google chief Eric Schmidt during an ‘in conversation’ event on stage. The tech guru said the UK was too full of people who were saying ‘no’ and the ‘delay is killing you’.

In his keynote speech at Guildhall, he said: ‘We’ve got our problems, of course we have, as I’ve said our public services need urgent care, our public finances need the tough love of prudence – challenges we can’t ignore. 

‘Because we know, just as every leader here knows, that those early weeks and months are precious, and no matter how many people advise you to ignore it, that you must run towards the fire to put it out, not let it spread further.’

He said it was ‘a mission-led mindset that thinks in years, not the days or hours of the news grid, needed to unlock potential’.

Sir Keir is hosting leading investors and CEOs at the inaugural International Investment Summit, where ministers hope to unveil deals worth billions for AI, life sciences and infrastructure.

The Prime Minister came under fire for ditching attempts to relieve the administrative burden on businesses while on the same day vowing to scrap red tape.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said the plans to simplify company reporting, announced in March, are ‘not being taken forward at this time’. 

They would have raised the threshold for businesses being classed as medium-sized from 250 employees to 500, sparing many bosses of small enterprises the requirement to file detailed accounts, as well as exempting them from having to write ‘strategic reports’ reviewing the previous year.  

Shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake said: ‘Keir Starmer’s lack of understanding and inconsistency is quite frightening, he says one thing and does the complete opposite.

‘In the face of a looming tidal wave of red tape, Starmer’s claims of a bonfire of business regulations would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.

‘Because of Labour’s flawed, anti-business, pro-union approach, investment will drop, productivity will suffer and jobs will be lost. It must change.’