Keir’s Gulf Photo-Op While London Bleeds

Listen up, Britain. While Keir Starmer jets off to Saudi Arabia playing world statesman in a crisp suit, a 21-year-old lad lies stabbed to death on Primrose Hill. Finbar Sullivan – music video director, only son of a musician – knifed in broad daylight at one of north London’s poshest viewpoints. Crowds out enjoying the hottest early April day in 80 years, and what do they get? A bloodbath. Another young life snuffed out in a “fight” that the Met are now calling murder. You couldn’t make it up.

This is the Britain Starmer’s lot have delivered. Not some gritty sink estate in the shadows. Primrose Hill – the sort of place Guardian readers take their sourdough picnics and pretend everything’s fine. But it’s not fine, is it? It’s a slaughterhouse. And while the Prime Minister’s off schmoozing Gulf royals about a fragile US-Iran ceasefire and the blocked Strait of Hormuz, the real war is right here on our streets. Knife crime up, gangsters laughing at us, and the police? Keir’s big announcement yesterday was “bobbies on the beat in every busy neighbourhood.” Brilliant. Tell that to Finbar’s dad.

The timing is grotesque. Starmer touched down in the Gulf on Wednesday after Trump forced a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Israel had just hammered Lebanon – 250 dead in one day, by the way – and Iran’s response was to shut down the Strait of Hormuz like it’s their personal toll booth. Oil prices spiking, tankers stuck, energy bills about to rocket again for every household in Britain. Starmer’s there banging on about “toll-free shipping” and “de-escalation.” Mate, we’ve got doctors striking for the 15th time since 2023, hospitals cancelling ops, and you’re playing diplomat in a desert? Get your arse back home.

The NHS chaos is another gift from this shower. Resident doctors walked out on Tuesday for six days straight over pay. The BMA wants another 26% on top of the rises they’ve already had. Wes Streeting’s fuming, claiming the strikes have already cost £3 billion. Patients are the ones paying – cancelled appointments, longer waits, the usual. But Starmer’s lot can’t face down the unions because they’re terrified of looking “Tory.” So the rest of us suffer while junior docs demand the earth. Meanwhile, the rest of the public sector’s watching and thinking: why not us too?

And don’t get me started on the economy. From April 1 we got the National Living Wage up to £12.71 – great, until you realise energy bills are still eye-watering because of the Middle East merry-go-round. House prices dipped in March. Builders are screaming about record cost inflation. Rachel Reeves is warning we need to cosy up to Europe because of Trump’s tariffs. The same Europe that’s been kicking us since Brexit. You won’t hear Labour admit any of this is their fault. It’s always someone else’s war, someone else’s price hike, someone else’s knife in a kid’s chest.

Reform UK are surging in the polls ahead of the locals. Labour can’t even find enough candidates – leaked emails begging people to stand with “no experience necessary.” No wonder. When your Prime Minister’s priority is looking statesman-like in Jeddah while a London beauty spot turns into a crime scene, the public clocks it. The grooming gang scandals are still raw, Rotherham’s victims still waiting for proper justice, and here we are with more stabbings. Labour’s betrayal of working-class communities is complete.

This country is screaming for common sense. Stop the virtue-signalling foreign trips. Fix the streets. End the strike madness. Control the borders and the boats so the gangs don’t import their problems here. Put actual coppers where the trouble is – not just for the cameras. And for God’s sake, stop pretending that record April heat or solar farms will save us when the lights are flickering because of Hormuz.

Britain’s turning the corner, Starmer keeps saying. From where I’m sitting it feels like we’re hurtling backwards down a one-way street with no brakes. Finbar Sullivan’s family deserves better. Every family in every town deserves better. The elite can swan about the Middle East all they like. The rest of us are stuck here in the mess they’ve made.

Wake up, Britain. Before it’s too late.