'Starmer is disloyal, incompetent and will be out by spring' after major leadership flaw

Sir Keir Starmer's "disloyalty and incompetence" mean he will be "gone by spring" after leading the party to defeat in May's local elections. Speaking on the Daily Expresso news show, Esther Krakue warned the country is "staring down the barrel" of a financial crisis after a Budget this autumn that is expected to hike taxes.

The Express columnist said the Prime Minister has no political convictions other than that he should be in charge. And she warned that the sacking of Lord Mandelson summed up the problems with Sir Keir's leadership style. She told the show: "If you develop a reputation in politics for being disloyal, you're basically toast.

"But if you develop a reputation for being incompetent, you're also toast.

"And I think the problem that Keir Starmer has is he's happy to fire people that are politically toxic to him.

"But politics, as anyone who works in it knows, is a pool. You have a pool of talent. There's only so much talent you can draw on.

"People say: 'Oh, why did you make Lammy Deputy PM?' Well, because there's not that much talent going around.

"His entire Cabinet is devoid of any real heavy hitters. And if you develop a reputation where you have someone like Peter Mandelson with 'singular talents' that can't even rely on you to back him up, you're not going to get anywhere.

"He shouldn't have taken the risk with Mandelson to begin with because the Epstein ties are very, very toxic.

"But now that he has, he looks also disloyal. So it's like he doesn't know what he's doing, and then when he gets caught out, he's going to drop you like a hot potato.

"How are you going to run a country that way? How are you going to have anyone around you that knows what they are doing?"

Sir Keir said he would never have appointed Lord Mandelson as the ambassador to the US if he had known the full extent of his relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Emails published by Bloomberg included passages in which the peer told Epstein to "fight for early release" shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Krakue predicted that Labour is going to "get thrashed" in May at the local elections and the Left will "split very soon".

"I think we're staring down the barrel of a significant fiscal crisis within the next 18 months.

"I think Starmer will be gone by spring, after the May elections, the local elections," she said. "I don't think he can weather that storm."

Krakue added: "I think anyone who has their eye on the ball is saying that there's going to be a Budget coming in the next two months that's going to be a bunch of tax rises that are going to be deeply unpopular.

"The markets are still not going to be happy. Yields are probably going to be at an all-time high still.

"Labour is going to get thrashed in May. Wales is gone, and Scotland, the SNP's demise hasn't really helped Labour either.

"So it's not looking good anyway you look at it. If Keir Starmer was sensible, he would probably leave before he's pushed.

"But the only thing we know that Keir Starmer believes is that he should be in charge.

"He doesn't have any political convictions other than that he should be in charge. That's it, which is quite unfortunate, really."