The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer over the last week deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics.
1. Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues.
2. Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence.
3. This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness.
4. The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives.
5. There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting.
6. None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals.
7. A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.
Today it is time to say
Don’t change our PM
Keep our country stable
Stop the media frenzy
It is as simple as this
Then Starmer press on with the recommended changes to bring back trust in our politics
London crime: fear vs data.
It has big problems - like any city. But our nation's capital is cleaner, calmer and safer than perhaps any time in living memory.
A woman dubbed the ‘MAGA Granny’, who refused a pardon for her part in the January 6 insurrection, made an emotional apology during a hearing to mark the fifth anniversary of the Capitol riot.
Pamela Hemphill addressed Capitol Police officers who were serving during the 2021 attacks at the House January 6 panel which was reconvened by Democrats to hear from witnesses and lawmakers about the events of that day.
The original panel was disbanded in 2023 with recommendations Trump be prosecuted on four federal charges.
Upon starting his second term in 2025, Trump pardoned or commuted sentences for 1500 people charged over the attack. Hemphill refused her pardon.
The #BBC is giving a hugely disproportionate of air time to #Reform
They seem to have conveniently forgotten there are 72 Lib Dem MPs
9 SNP
5 DUP
5 Reform
4 Green
4 Plaid Cymru
It’s not as if they are holding #Reform to account - just giving them free air time.
Judi Dench, @David_Suchet and Sienna Miller are among high-profile performers backing a campaign to rename the West End’s Duchess Theatre after prolific playwright Terence Rattigan 👇 https://t.co/9cRXWoEB8P