I'm John Batchler. I am a Starmer Watcher.

He is my idea of what Parliament represents in governance.

Parliament comes out of the British tradition of challenging authority.

17th century, the English Civil Wars, 18th century, America.

So here we are in the 21st century, and Kirstarmer was elected by labor

to solve the problems of being unattractive to the population, because of anti-Semitism,

because of overstatements of what they're going to do in office. They're now in office big time,

huge majority. And yet Kirstarmer, a man who brought them together and won the election, is regarded as more unpopular than any parliament, than any prime minister ever polled, I believe.

Joe, how did this happen?

Starmor's got a success all around him.

Why is he so unpopular?

Well, I think the problem that's unfolding is that the Labor Party has never really gotten a grip on the economy.

So I think that we continue having these quarters where the economic data is bordering between bad and not great.

So I detect on the ground over here a growing sense of pessimism about the economy,

which is never good for whichever politician is in power as the prime minister. And there's

just this growing sense of haplessness around Stormer. He seems to be blown hither and

yon by events rather than appearing like he is actually driving or shaping events.

And, you know, that shows up on economic issues, has showed up in various political scandals that

have royaled the UK over the past 18 or so months that labor has been in power now.

Most recently, in the past week or two,

it has shown up and has confused an unconvincing response to the Iran war, where first they weren't going to participate, and then they sort of were going to participate, and now they're

back to not participating, and no one can exactly say why they are or aren't doing the thing that they aren't or are doing.

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