{"id":491635,"date":"2026-03-23T23:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/491635\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T23:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T23:31:08","slug":"starmers-liaison-committee-jaunt-was-largely-soporific-just-as-hed-wanted-john-crace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/491635\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer\u2019s liaison committee jaunt was largely soporific \u2013 just as he\u2019d wanted | John Crace"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a difference a week makes. At last week\u2019s prime minister\u2019s questions<\/a>, Keir Starmer tried to persuade us he knew less than he did. His memory was so bad that he could barely remember who Peter Mandelson was, let alone why he had appointed him as ambassador to the US. Fast forward to Monday\u2019s appearance before the liaison committee, the supergroup of select committee chairs, and Keir was desperate to convince us he knew more than he did. He had the inside track on Iran. He was in control. He also wasn\u2019t altogether convincing.<\/p>\n

Mind you, it\u2019s hard not to feel some sympathy for Starmer. The whole point of being prime minister is that you\u2019re expected to know more than the rest of us. And most of the time you do. State secrets are your life blood. Only, just occasionally the veil slips. Having threatened to obliterate Tehran\u2019s power plants just days earlier, on Monday morning Donald Trump announced on Truth Social \u2013 along with a strange witch reference \u2013 that he was going to delay the bombardment for five days<\/a> as constructive talks with the Iranian regime were taking place.<\/p>\n

And no one \u2013 not even Starmer \u2013 has a clue what to think. Was this yet another example of Taco \u2013 Trump always chickens out \u2013 after Iran called his bluff and threatened to escalate the war still further? Was this the US president looking for a way out from a conflict that hadn\u2019t worked out as planned? Or would he change his mind in a couple of days\u2019 time and bomb Iran anyway? Both were equally possible. Because not even The Donald knows what he is going to do<\/a> in a few days\u2019 or even hours\u2019 time. He is a man of impulse. An amoral narcissist.<\/p>\n

Early on at the liaison committee, Starmer tried to reassure MPs that he had the bases covered. Insisting that he had prior knowledge of the recent discussions between the US and Iran. But did he? Ordinarily you would think that Keir\u2019s admission confirmed the talks had happened. But the reality is that the lead countries in the war have all acted in bad faith. Trump might have told Starmer about the negotiations but that doesn\u2019t mean they happened. And equally the Iranians\u2019 denial of any such exchanges doesn\u2019t mean they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

A little more reality slipped into the proceedings when Starmer said he had no idea of how long the conflict could go on for. Without wanting to criticise the US president too explicitly, he did rather say it was all in Trump\u2019s hands. The war could be over by the end of the week. There again it could drag on for months. But Keir was laser-focused \u2013 he\u2019s often laser-focused these days \u2013 on doing all he could to de-escalate the situation.<\/p>\n

Starmer probably couldn\u2019t say that much more in the circumstances, and the committee, made up almost exclusively of Labour MPs, decided not to push him too much on the things that were out of his control. Instead, they chose to focus on Britain\u2019s response so far. It made for a largely soporific 90 minutes. Exactly the effect Keir had been hoping for. Every prime minister aims to have come out of a meeting with the liaison committee having said nothing that makes news and having bored most people to death.<\/p>\n

The defence committee chair, Tan Singh Dhesi, briefly tried to liven things up by suggesting it had been embarrassing that the UK had not had a single warship in the area when the war started. Not at all, replied Starmer. We had pre-deployed all sorts of military hardware to the Gulf. Just not the navy. And besides we had got HMS Dragon ready to sail in just six days<\/a> compared with the usual six weeks. When you came to think of it, being only six days late for a war really wasn\u2019t that bad. After all, nothing much happens in the first week.<\/p>\n

Dhesi then pressed Starmer on Israeli reports that Iran now had missiles capable of reaching London. And we had no defence shield capable of preventing them. Keir was adamant that we were more than able to defend ourselves \u2013 he didn\u2019t say whether he thought the Iranian missile capacity had been exaggerated. People shouldn\u2019t worry too much about this, he said. Besides, if a missile did hit London, those who were hit wouldn\u2019t know a thing about it as they would all be dead. So best not to think of these things.<\/p>\n

The spikiest exchanges came with the lone Tory, Bernard Jenkin. Bernie wanted to know what had happened to the defence investment plan. Starmer snapped back that these things took time because the Conservatives had hollowed out the armed forces with 12 years of underfundment. Whatever underfundment is.<\/p>\n

Jenkin was in no mood for jaw jaw. Churchill wouldn\u2019t have been wringing his hands. Bernie wanted a scrap. With everyone. Not just to fight them on the beaches, but to fight them everywhere. \u201cYou are at peace,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are at war.\u201d If Bernie had been in charge he would have built dozens of frigates in the last 18 months. As well as illegally reopening oilfields. \u201cThis is an emergency.\u201d If only he\u2019d got around to pointing all of this out when his own party had been in power.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was because the room was stifling hot \u2013 someone had turned the radiators up full \u2013 but much of the rest of the proceedings passed without incident. Time and again, we were told of reports that would be with us in the fullness of time. No one asked about Mandelson. Or whether the king\u2019s state visit to the US should go ahead.<\/p>\n

Instead, Keir got to say that contingency plans for energy shortages and price hikes were under review and that while he judged the war to be unlawful for Britain, it was up to the US to make its own call on the legality. We had adopted the policy of collective self-defence and would take no part in offensive operations. Oh, and Britain would not be a haven for those guilty of crimes against humanity. That\u2019s a relief.<\/p>\n

The session ended with the committee chair, Meg Hillier, extending her sympathies to Starmer. Saying that it must be difficult having to deal with a US president who was so volatile. Code for mad. She didn\u2019t mention the recent Saturday Night Live sketch that Trump had been reposting. There again, it hadn\u2019t been that funny the first time. Keir puffed up his chest. He knew that people were trying to undermine him but he would always protect the UK\u2019s interests. He would never surrender. At that point, I thought I saw a tear well up in Bernie\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What a difference a week makes. At last week\u2019s prime minister\u2019s questions, Keir Starmer tried to persuade us…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-491635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}