The National:

IT has been three years since Keir Starmer won the Labour leadership contest and decided to take a Tory-lite approach to his policy positions.

As the next General Election, due to be in 2024, fast approaches, the Labour leader has been trying to present himself as a PM-in-waiting, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing for the Holborn and St Pancras MP.

The Jouker has picked out some key Starmer gaffes and U-turns to mark the former barrister’s three years as leader of the opposition.

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In no particular order…

Margaret Thatcher was “right”

IT may seem clear to most Labour politicians that quoting the arch-Tory idol and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher would be a bad idea … but not Starmer.

In a speech where he set out his plans to tackle violent crime, he said Thatcher was “right” about the rule of law.

It didn’t take long for opposition politicians, including SNP Westminster depute group leader Mhairi Black, to use his words as an example of the Labour Party moving further to the right.

Maybe Starmer should stick to quoting Labour politicians in future, perhaps …

10 pledges … quickly broken

WHILE Starmer insists he has not broken the 10 pledges he made during the Labour leadership campaign and has simply “adapted” them, there was a cringeworthy moment in August 2022 when the Labour leader was confronted by his past promises on the Jeremy Vine Show.

Starmer said his promises showed his commitment to maintaining the party’s “radical values” but has since embraced Brexit and taken a hard-line stance on immigration and crime.

He vowed to stand with trade unions, then barred shadow cabinet members from joining picket lines during the biggest wave of strikes since the 1970s.

The National: Starmer was asked why he had moved away from pledges on public ownershipStarmer was asked why he had moved away from pledges on public ownership

Starmer said he would defend free movement whilst the UK left the EU, but then U-turned and said Labour would not bring in the policy if they win power at the next General Election.

He had previously promised to nationalise energy firms during the leadership campaign, but two years later, the plan had been dropped and the focus was on freezing energy bills instead.

We could go on and on, but you get the gist.

I am NOT friends with Corbyn

WE could probably fill a whole article with the drama between Starmer and his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, with the former blocking the latter from standing as a Labour candidate at the next General Election.

But what is particularly hilarious, is Starmer’s claim that he was not friends with the Islington North MP, despite video footage existing of him saying that he IS friends with Corbyn, and on multiple occasions.

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Pressed about whether Corbyn was ever a friend, Starmer said: “No, not in the sense that we went to visit each other or anything like that. I worked with him as a colleague.

“As I say, I haven’t spoken to him now for two-and-a-half years.”

The Jouker wonders why…

Labour civil war

IF you read any Unionist papers during the fallout from Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform legislation and subsequent blocking of the bill by the UK Government, you would be forgiven for thinking that only the SNP were having internal strife over the policy.

But Labour and Starmer were publicly in a complete mess over the legislation that the majority of his Scottish Labour MSPs voted for, leading Monica Lennon to publicly decry Starmer’s intervention.

He has also repeatedly found himself in hot water over the issue of transgender rights, with many LGBT campaigners and groups criticising the Labour Party for spreading transphobia.

The National: Lennon was not pleased with Starmer's intervention during the gender reform rowLennon was not pleased with Starmer's intervention during the gender reform row (Image: PA)

Kissing Tories

NO, not in the House of Commons. But Starmer for some reason revealed during an interview with The Times that he had kissed a Tory in the past.

The cringe-inducing front page, based on a viral slogan which says “Thou shalt never kiss a Tory”, spread online quickly.

There is a reason these things are popular - maybe Starmer’s team should update their Zeitgeist tapes so he can better read the mood before his next flashy magazine interview.

Sometimes it appears as if Starmer forgets which party he is leading...

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I sacked Richard!

MARKING his three-year anniversary in the role, it came as no surprise to anyone that Starmer admitted that he sacked Richard Leonard as leader of Scottish Labour, allowing Anas Sarwar to come into the top job after a contest against Lennon.

What is surprising, however, is, one, that he admitted it, two, that he doesn’t see the issue with admitting it, and three, not foreseeing that it would be used as another “branch office” stick to beat his Scottish MSPs with by the opposition.

What are your worst and best Starmer moments over the past three years? Let us know in the comments below.