To the ramparts! Sir Keir summons hard power for hard times – a Guardian piece, a realist caricature

The Guardian seems to be unhappy with its beloved leftist Labor Party, and, in particular, with the performances of Prime Minister Starmer. This new piece is the best example of the Guardian’s discontent, wrapped in a speech of comedy and caricature.

“It’s War-War”.

The Guardian’s writer, John Crace, commenced with these impressive words, almost ridiculing the subject what it is about.

“The threat was real. The threat was now. His sweaty fingers hovered over the nuclear button. Any minute now he could authorise a first strike. Possibly by mistake. The world had never been more dangerous. It had taken all his self-restraint not to come dressed in uniform. Cosplaying a military commander is usually the point of no return for global leaders.”

The author fantastically and ironically draws a picture of what was resented by the listeners attending a speech of PM Starmer.

“Keir’s message was stark. England expects that every man – and every woman – will do their duty. A war was both imminent and likely. This was no time for old people to moan about having their winter fuel allowance taken away. Rather they should be asking what they could be doing for their country. Joining the Home Guard. Knitting socks for fighter pilots.

This was no time for hard-up parents to demand that the two-child benefit cap be removed. Rather they should be getting their kiddies battle-ready. Buying them toy drones with miniature nuclear warheads. No one is too young to fight. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

The author is terrible and destructive with his humoristic development of a scene and impression when listening to PM Starmer. The threat is described by Starmer so overwhelmingly that it reminds Churchillian times. The defense needs of the Country are so enormous, according to Starmer, that all citizens must unite and give all their efforts, pay higher taxes and demand less aid and less support, to save the Country from Putin. It sounds like the Kaiser who said at the beginning of WWI: “I do not know any parties, I only know Germans.”

And the Guardian’s author ‘rightfully’ continues: “In the new world order there would be no such thing as a civilian. Apart from the 650 MPs. They would play a vital role in the war effort by staying safely at home and telling the rest of us how we should die.” Indeed, he wants to translate it into: ” shut up, belive and die in misery.” So the Guardian argues: “Peace through strength. At times the language bordered on the Orwellian. But Starmer had a message he was desperate to get across. We were in the fight of our lives. No one was safe. To imagine otherwise was to be in denial. Even as he spoke, the Russians were plotting our downfall.” In brilliant words, the author explains to the reader: don’t be fooled by Putin. Don’t be fooled by the Russian economy’s weakness, don’t be fooled by the Russian army’s incompetence, don’t be fooled by Putin’s declared intentions not to conquere all of Ukraine, all of Europe and all of the UK.

Brilliant, isn’t it?

But more brilliant is the Guardian’s author’s analysis of the new economic policy of PM Starmer: “With the whole country now devoted to making and eating weapons, we were all going to have more money than we knew what to do with. There was money for all of us in weapons of mass destruction.”

The call is to abandon aid to the poor, aid to developing countries, to raise taxes, in particular on the rich (who are leaving the UK by the tens of thousands, being replaced by boat people). PM Starmer is in need to explain to his own voters why those social spending reductions, tax and debt increases are necessary. And why the UK steps into the same line as Donald Trump by reducing drastically foreign aid to developping countries: “Soft power was so last decade. The only language foreigners would understand now was war. – Peace through Strength” – concludes the Guardian’ John Crace and finds all this Orwellian.