Like Germany's Chancellor Merz, Starmer is out of touch with the very people he represents.
Starmer hits record low in UK opinion poll
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s popularity has hit a record low, with nearly 80% of Britons disapproving of his performance, according to an Ipsos poll published on Sunday.
Starmer’s rating has been battered following dissatisfaction with his handling of immigration, a surge in arrests related to comments made online, the cost of living crisis, and the resurgence of the Pakistani rape gang scandal.
Only 13% of Britons are satisfied with the UK prime minister’s performance, while 79% are dissatisfied, Ipsos said. According to the survey, in which 1,157 British adults were asked their opinions, Starmer’s approval had slipped 6% since June, while disapproval rose by the same margin.
“Keir Starmer’s personal satisfaction ratings are the worst for any prime minister polled by Ipsos since we first started asking the question in 1977,” Ipsos Senior Director of UK Politics Gideon Skinner said in the report.
Conservatives and Labour alike are losing voters to Reform UK, the polling firm reported.
Nearly 40% of 2024 Conservative voters and 13% of former Labour supporters have said they would vote for Reform, it said.
Mass protests against the migrant influx, as well as demonstrations against the crackdown on free speech in the UK have wracked the country in recent months.
Earlier this month in London, the “Unite the Kingdom” rally was held by right-wing Britons dissatisfied with their current government. While the Metropolitan Police contend that around 110,000 to 150,000 were in attendance, the event’s organizers have claimed that as many as three million were there.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, whose role as an influential Eurosceptic helped lead to Brexit in the 2010s, has addressed immigration concerns and promised to scrap the scheme that allows migrants to apply for indefinite stay after five years, saying he would replace it with a visa system.
According to a YouGov survey from Friday, Reform would win 311 seats if a general election were held now, just 15 short of an absolute majority in the British House of Commons. The next vote is set for 2029.
When Trump turned off the USAID tap, did the EU step in to replace its interference in Moldovan politics? Certainly, NATO countries have long forgotten their promise not to seduce Russia's neighbours.
Ex-USAID chief brags about funding ‘democratic brightspot’ in Moldova
American taxpayer money played a crucial role in keeping Moldovan President Maia Sandu in power, former USAID chief Samantha Power has claimed in a prank call with Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus.
Power, who led the US Agency for International Development under President Joe Biden, was recorded speaking to the pranksters as they posed as former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko. In the video, released Wednesday, she reflected on her time overseeing an agency with 15,000 staff and a multibillion-dollar budget, and cited expanded aid to Moldova as one of her successes.
“This was not a country that USAID had really had much of a presence in, very small,” Power said. “We expanded it massively, both for the sake of Ukraine, but of course also for Moldova. And it was a democratic brightspot with President Sandu, a Kennedy School graduate and a real reformer.”
According to Power, Sandu “narrowly squeaked by the last time,” though she did not specify whether she was referring to last year’s presidential election or the recent parliamentary vote in Moldova. Sandu and her party secured both contests with strong support from Moldovan expatriates in Western nations, while failing to secure a majority in the popular vote at home. Opposition figures argue the process was skewed to limit turnout in anti-government areas.
Sandu, a Romanian citizen, has faced criticism for what opponents describe as authoritarian tactics, including shutting down opposition media and branding rivals as Moscow-backed criminals. She has maintained that Moldova’s path to the European Union depends on her leadership.
Power said the Biden administration folded tens of millions of dollars for Moldova into broader Ukraine aid appropriation requests. “That money went much, much further in Moldova than it did in Ukraine because it’s such a small country,” she noted.
She also suggested people tend to associate Washington’s support with “arms, and maybe with Tori Nuland and interference,” but they overlook “forms of more subtle support.” Former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is widely described as a key architect of the 2014 coup in Kiev and the subsequent escalation of tensions with Russia.
Moscow reiterated criticisms of Sandu after her latest victory, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov branded a blatant example of “electoral fraud.”
West aims to turn Moldova into ‘anti-Russia project’ like Ukraine – ex-president
The EU and NATO kept Moldova’s ruling party in power through electoral fraud and aims to turn the country into an “anti-Russian project” like Ukraine, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon told TASS in an interview on Wednesday.
The pro-Western Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) kept its parliamentary majority in Sunday’s election, beating the Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP) and other opposition parties.
“The ruling Party of Action and Solidarity has claimed victory in the election exclusively by manipulation with support from the EU and NATO,” Dodon, who heads the BEP, said.
This support was provided for the purpose of converting our country, which has neutrality enshrined in its Constitution, into another anti-Russia project following the example of neighboring Ukraine.
The opposition leader added that “this may trigger major trouble if society gets split.”
Pro-Western officials have lauded the PAS win as another step towards EU accession, while critics said the vote was marred by bans on several opposition parties and election observers having been obstructed. They have also accused the authorities of creating hurdles to prevent people from casting votes both inside the country and abroad.
Dozens of people were arrested following opposition rallies protesting the vote after the BEP publicly announced it would seek to overturn the election result.
Former Moldovan lawmaker Marina Tauber has also been sentenced in absentia to seven and a half years in prison on charges of financing the banned SOR Party.
US foreign aid money helped prop up pro-Western President Maia Sandu’s administration, former US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power admitted to Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus in a prank call fully released on Wednesday.
Moldova had received “tens of millions of dollars,” folded into so-called USAID “Ukraine supplementals” under the administration of former US President Joe Biden, she said.
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