DAN HODGES: Tonight bombers from the Cotswolds will again be raining down epic fury on Iran. If this is what it looks like when Starmer stands up to Trump, God help us when he finally caves
The giant, grey B-52 bomber sat a few hundred yards away from me, idling its engines.
You don’t actually appreciate how huge these weapons of war are until you see them up close. Its wings are so vast they eventually droop down upon themselves, as if the constant struggle to get airborne has finally broken them.
The aircraft I’m looking at is nicknamed ‘Bomber Baron’. Dotted around it, in full view of the neat semis that comprise the quiet village of Whelford that rings RAF Fairford, are several other birds of prey: ‘Guardian Of The Upper Realm’, ‘Iron Butterfly’, ‘Symphony Of Destruction’.
Every day these aircraft lumber up into the Gloucestershire sky, straining under the weight of the AGM-158 cruise missiles mounted on their external pylons, or the JDAM ‘Bunker Buster’ bombs secreted within their cavernous bellies, and set off for Iran.
And a war that Sir Keir Starmer has spent the last month insisting Britain has no part of.
Although, if you listen carefully, the Prime Minister’s public line on this has recently been shifting a little.
For the past three weeks he has been telling the country he would not take us into war, unlike those reckless tub-thumpers Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. Then on Monday this became ‘we will not be drawn into the wider war’.
Though how wide this war would need to be to compel Sir Keir to draw a line in the Lut desert isn’t exactly clear.
A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress takes off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire
US President Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer at a joint press conference last year
At around the time he was making his new pledge, HMS Dragon was finally chugging past the Straits of Gibraltar.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Defence was announcing the RAF had flown 550 hours of ‘defensive operations’ since the conflict (that the UK purportedly has no involvement in) began, and now has more jets in the region than at any point in the past 15 years.
And the Bomber Baron and his friends were preparing to unleash some more ‘defensive’ shock and awe as part of Operation Epic Fury.
Until this weekend the Prime Minister’s aides were boastfully briefing about how Starmer was now pursuing his ‘Love Actually’ strategy.
This is a reference to the moment Hugh Grant’s fictional Prime Minister finally confronts Billy Bob Thornton’s bullying US President after catching him trying to force himself on Martine McCutcheon, Grant’s secretary.
Starmer, they were claiming, had similarly decided the time had come to ‘stand up to Trump’. But as the events of the past 48 hours have graphically illustrated, he hasn’t.
Instead, we – and the world – have been subject to the spectacle of the real British Prime Minister ducking, diving, prevaricating, procrastinating, obfuscating and straight up lying as he again tries to be all things to all people. And ends up being of no use to anybody on anything.
It began with President Trump’s request for naval assistance in opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Last Sunday evening Starmer’s aides fanned out to discreetly tell the press he had decided to rebuff Trump’s request to send ships to the Gulf.
The following day he appeared at a No 10 press conference, apparently to confirm his stance.
And promptly reverse ferreted. No decisions had actually been taken on a potential naval deployment, he declared. The matter was still being discussed with allies, including the United States. But, Starmer said, ‘ultimately we need to get the Strait opened’.
Hugh Grant's British PM and the US president, played by Billy Bob Thornton, in Love Actually
Two weeks ago I predicted the Prime Minister would prove too weak to properly fight this war, and too weak to keep us out of it. And so it has proved, writes Dan Hodges
Then it emerged, via an incandescent Trump, that Starmer had adopted a completely different stance when the two had discussed the issue hours before.
Far from ruling out sending assets, Starmer had instead told him, ‘I’m meeting with my team to make a determination.’
According to Trump’s account: ‘I said you don’t need to meet with your team, you’re the Prime Minister, you can make your own, why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you’re going to send some minesweepers to help us or to send some boats?’
Trump’s attacks on Sir Keir have now reached such a deranged crescendo even Kemi Badenoch felt moved to declare she found them ‘childish’.
But on this occasion, the US President’s ire was justified. Whatever people’s view of Trump and his war, Starmer has a duty to engage with Britain’s main international ally with candour and conviction.
And his decision to tell him one thing, order his aides to brief the press another, then paint an entirely different picture again for the British people is indicative of his callow and chaotic premiership.
One rationale for this murkiness is that diplomatic niceties preclude Starmer from revealing to the nation what his private game plan is for managing such a uniquely volatile White House occupant as Trump.
But there’s a difference between realpolitik and stringing someone along. And telling Trump one thing, while spinning an entirely different tale to the media, isn’t smart diplomacy.
Another justification proffered by Starmer’s allies is that regardless of politics and presentation, Starmer has secured the high moral ground by keeping Britain at arm’s length from the conflict.
But again, the opposite is true. On Friday the Prime Minister announced he had again U-turned, and agreed to a US request to use British bases to attack Iran along the Strait of Hormuz, in defence of our interests.
At which point Iran responded by firing two ballistic missiles at our territory of Diego Garcia, one of which had to be engaged by a US destroyer. Further underlining how US air crews and sailors are being asked to risk their lives daily in our defence, while Starmer skulks behind their valour and sacrifice.
Two weeks ago I predicted the Prime Minister would prove too weak to properly fight this war, and too weak to keep us out of it. And so it has proved.
No 10 genuinely believed Sir Keir’s Love Actually moment would spark a reversal of his political fortunes.
Is Britain sacrificing its integrity by following America into war, or should we stand our ground no matter the cost?
Comment nowBut there is zero evidence of that. According to a poll published by Sky News, while a vast majority of respondents oppose the war, a majority also oppose Starmer’s handling of it.
This is partly because of the Starmer Paradigm, that rule that says the British people will reject anything simply on the basis it is Sir Keir proposing it. But there is another reason why Starmer’s attempt to mimic Hugh Grant is failing to cut through.
In Love Actually the Prime Minister summons the courage to finally confront the US President honestly and openly to his face. And as we have seen, Sir Keir is too weak and too indecisive and too temperamentally wedded to inaction to adopt such a bold public stance.
If Sir Keir had been cast in Grant’s place, he would have told Martine McCutcheon he wanted to marry her. Then told Billy Bob Thornton he could have her. Then finally told the British people his relationship with his secretary was complicated, but would be kept under constant review.
Tonight bombers from Gloucestershire will again be raining down their epic fury on Iran. If this is what it looks like when Starmer stands up to Trump, God help us when he finally caves to him.
