Carney seems to be everything Starmer is not

When you watch and listen to Canadian Prime Minister, now effectively leader of the West, Mark Carney you can’t but think that this guy knows what he’s doing, why he’s doing it and that he explains things well.

Carney comes across as confident and that he’s someone you can trust to get difficult jobs done. Let’s face it Canada is suffering the effects of Trumpism like no other country*, but instead of allowing themselves to be bullied Canadians, led by Carney, are digging in and fighting Trump every inch of the way, so it seems.

The UK meanwhile suffers from a significant lack of confidence in the government of Kier Starmer. Elected in June 2024, it seems to sway from one crisis to another, with U-turns in policy becoming commonplace. Attempts to creep around Trump have been excruciating at best and Brits really don’t know what Starmer’s plan is, because he’s never outlined one and may not even have one.

Carney and Starmer are chalk and cheese politically, despite both of them probably being decent human beings trying to do extremely difficult jobs.

So why are the two of them viewed so very differently? Carney, whilst being an economist running the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, has clearly got how politics works, probably because he’d done business with so many leading politicians in his previous life. Starmer, on the other hand, was effectively plucked from his legal background, without those promoting him, seemingly realising that he was significantly lacking in political acumen and goodness has that been exposed. Starmer has had to learn on the job how to be a PM and a party political leader and unsurprisingly he’s made many a misstep along the way. Canadian voters respect and trust Carney, UK voters are despairing about Starmer’s faltering leadership.

Will Canadian voters turn against Carney at some point? Probably they will, but at least he hit the ground running in a clear direction and has been able to take Canadians along with him. Starmer on the other hand looks to be lost and unable to take his own party along him, let alone UK voters.

Politics is brutal and Starmer is in a terrible bind. He can probably do nothing about his plight and can hope that ‘events dear boy, events’** turn in his favour.

* Mexico may be another

** PM Harold Macmillan supposedly said this and it’s oft quoted, but I understand there’s little to actually pin it down to him in terms of evidence.

 

On the passing of Jesse Jackson

You couldn’t have lived through the 1970’s and 1980’s without hearing of Jesse Jackson, the larger than life civil rights campaigner from the USA.

I have two distinct memories of him. The first being from the excellent Wattstax concert in Los Angeles of 1972 and second of seeing him at Liverpool University’s Mountford Hall in December 2008.

Being an avid Isaac Hayes fan I have a CD of his performance at Wattsax where Jesse Jackson was the MC introducing Hayes and getting the packed crowd at the Los Angeles Coliseum hyped up. The day-long concert featured virtually every artist signed up to Stax, and it was a positive reaction to the civil rights riots of 7 years prior in the Watts community. You could call it a black Woodstock. Of course, Stax also realised it would be a great showcase for those on its books, so good business as well as good social perspective.

Here’s a link to YouTube where Jesse Jackson winds up the crowd and the entrance of Hayes to the Coliseum stage:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiO3Bg2Dw6M&list=RDWiO3Bg2Dw6M&start_radio=1

Many years later, during my time as Leader of Sefton Council, I received an invitation to see Jackson in Liverpool. As it was Capital of Culture year for Liverpool it was probably why he was visiting. I still have my ticket and here it is:-

 

My recollection is that Jackson made a great characteristic speech and it was a privilege to be there listening. What I also recall though was his entourage of quite a number of formidable gentlemen, with whom you would not mess, who were clearly there to keep him safe.

So one of the most prominent civil rights campaigners has passed on and in his case I’m quite sure we’ll never see his like again. RIP Jesse Jackson.