Reverse Keir

IN a political career marked by cynical U-turns, this is Keir Starmer’s most ­staggering.

His flagship £28billion-a-year eco plan always looked a bloated fantasy even as he talked it up again and again.

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Labour, as many in the party admit, had no other significant ideas.

So Starmer went big on a state-owned green energy giant run by Ed Miliband and other brainwaves ­supposedly creating “hundreds of thousands” of well-paid jobs.

His hapless MPs were sent out to boast of a golden new era of Labour-run eco prosperity.

And it was all hot air — not to mention wildly unaffordable.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves knew such vast borrowing would be economically suicidal and ruinous for Labour’s image.

So they’ve tried to save face by slashing it, spreading it over five years — and aiming to bolster the coffers with yet more punitive taxes on energy giants.

But if they were so certain achieving “clean power by 2030” would cost £28billion a year, how would they still get there on a tiny fraction of it?

They wouldn’t, of course. That empty promise would be binned too.

Starmer now claims the economy has got worse since the party first pledged all this. That is straightforwardly false.

The monstrous impact of Covid borrowing was already clear back then.

And since last June — when they doubled-down on it and Miliband vowed that “Keir, Rachel and I” would never back down — the economy has dramatically improved, with inflation halved.

The U-turn has enraged the unions and some Labour MPs. It may please swing voters who feared all that eco spending.

But it adds to the wider public’s conviction that Starmer has no firm beliefs.

That he leads a party which, if money is tight, doesn’t know what it’s for.

Labour may well win power. But what would Starmer do with it?

Does anyone have a clue? Does he?

Blue murder

AS if footie refs don’t have enough to worry about, they’ll soon need the card-dealing skills of a Vegas croupier.

What’s so wrong with our beautiful game that we now need blues, on top of reds and yellows, plus “sin bins”?

The more liberal use of yellows for dissent has already calmed some players down.

So just leave football alone . . . for the players to play and us to enjoy.

Home offices

THE Home Office was branded “not fit for purpose” in 2006. And that was when staff turned up for work.

Now — failing on multiple fronts, including small boats migration — less than half do. The rest stay home.

And many appear to spend that time actively obstructing Government policies.

Time for Home Secretary James Cleverly to lay down the law.