Editorial: Keir Starmer is not up to the demanding role of being prime minister of the UK

​There is almost a pathos to Keir Starmer, just as there was to John Major.

Both seem to be fundamentally good men who wanted to serve the public at a high level. But Downing Street is a ferocious crucible. Almost all prime ministers have found the role punishing, and a many of them have been visibly damaged by holding that most important office of state.​

Sir Keir Starmer is in an almost irrecoverable situation – that of being seen widely as a weak man, something voters resent in leaders. In part that sense of him is true – he is not a born leader. In part it is that he was never a politician, but rather a skilled legal professional who became a manager. And in part he seems weak because he is in an impossible situation, with diverging forces in the Labour Party pulling him different ways. Then he has had the added misfortune of presiding over a chaotic time.

Now Donald Trump, with whom Sir Keir has made big effort to build good relations, has issued the withering put-down of the PM that “this is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with”.

Starmer in his career placed great store by human rights and international law. Those bodies of legislation were already discredited but now seem broken beyond repair. Consider the spectacle of Ireland and the racist South Africans (in effect) giving succour to Hamas in their case against Israel. Consider the advisory opinion on Chagos of which a Chinese judge was part. Consider how the European Convention on Human Rights has both led to the demonisation of the security forces in Northern Ireland and stopped the UK policing its borders.

Sir Keir, whatever his qualities, should have begun to see these problems years ago. There is no point sucking up to Mr Trump if you can’t see what brought him to power: a justified pride that blue collar workers have in their nations on both sides of the Atlantic.