‘Starmer is a big snooze and an empty suit’
Lionel Shriver on the uselessness of Keir Starmer and why she fears a Democratic comeback in the US.

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What has gone wrong with the centre-left in the West? The UK’s Labour government seems to coast from crisis to crisis, lacking in direction and incapable of passing reforms, despite its huge parliamentary majority. The US Democrats, meanwhile, despite their bruising defeat to Donald Trump, seem strangely energised, especially on their left flank. Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York mayoral primary confirms they have learnt little from November’s rout and are determined to double down on woke.
Lionel Shriver – novelist, journalist and author of Mania – joined spiked ’s chief political writer Brendan O’Neill for the latest episode of his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show, to help make sense of all this and more. What follows is an edited extract of their conversation. You can watch the full thing here.
Brendan O’Neill: You straddle two continents. How do you think Britain is getting on at the moment?
Lionel Shriver: I’m worried about it across the board. My biggest concern is immigration. I anticipated, back in about 1990, that immigration was going to be the dominant issue of this century. So far, I’ve been right. And it’s only going to get more pressing. The UK is accepting immigrants on a scale that is completely transforming the demographic makeup of the country, and there’s no getting around the fact that that is both a cultural and a political threat.
I sense a growing rage in the UK. Ordinary people feel powerless. Mass immigration has been imposed on them without any consultation. The UK is ostensibly a democracy, and yet the most significant policy enacted in the country during our lifetimes has been done without any mandate or consent of the people. And whenever people are allowed to vote, they vote for parties that promise to do something about it – and then they don’t.
O’Neill: How do you rate Keir Starmer’s performance as PM so far?
Shriver: Politics is personal – it isn’t just entities representing viewpoints or packages of policies. Politicians are people, and their flaws pertain. Their flaws influence what they are capable of achieving, and Keir Starmer wears his flaws on his sleeve.
Starmer comes across as weak and boring. That matters, because no one pays attention to boring people. You don’t care what they think about you. You ignore them. Being boring means you have less political power.
Starmer’s dour character is affecting his government. He doesn’t seem to be capable of having strong relationships with other people, least of all anyone on his own team. He seems ineffectual. He’s a big snooze, an empty suit. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Labour ditches him mid-term.
I think that is the reason people voted for him. He was the none-of-the-above candidate who won a negative election. It was only about removing the Tories. He is a blank outline, like an Amazon product with no picture.
There is an obvious parallel between Starmer’s Labour and the Democrats in the US. I don’t think California governor Gavin Newsom is a serious candidate for president, though he thinks he is. I can’t see how he would ever be elected. Not only is he woke personified, he’s kind of creepy. But, at least he has some personality, which is better than not having one at all.
O’Neill: Sticking with America, do you think Trump has succeeded in burying wokeness?
Shriver: I go back and forth. Sometimes, I feel sure that it’s all behind us. Then I realise it is still rife in universities. They’re still teaching the kids the same rubbish.
Of course, changing a presidential administration doesn’t change a culture. And for many people, woke is their belief system, and they’re very attached to it. The enemy is still out there, and the danger is that we’re only six months into the Trump administration. Things could still seriously go to hell. Especially economically, if he follows through on some of these tariff threats. If this administration goes down in flames, then the chances that the Democrats come back are very high – and they haven’t changed at all.
Just look at New York, where I am now. Look at Zohran Mamdani, who the Democrats nominated for mayor. New York is the biggest and most important city in the US, and Mamdani is an unabashed, self-declared ‘socialist’.
His policies are lunatic. He is 110 per cent woke. This is not a good sign. And because the opposition so far is Eric Adams – the incumbent, moderately disgraced mayor of New York City – and Cuomo – a not-so-moderately disgraced former governor of New York state – the chances are Mamdani will just walk right into office.
The only thing that makes me optimistic on the local front is that there’s a relationship between New York City and New York State, which makes city law partially subservient to state law. So Mamdani cannot, by himself, raise taxes nearly as high as he wants to. He has to get the approval of the governor, and I don’t think that’s going to be forthcoming. But in the larger national context – and that’s what’s really important – this is an unreformed Democratic Party, and people have been celebrating his nomination all over the country.
O’Neill: How worried do you think New Yorkers should be about Mamdani?
Shriver: Very worried. Young people don’t know anything about history, and therefore socialism sounds very appealing. But socialism is completely at odds with human nature, and why people do things, and it ultimately just disincentivises anyone to do anything. So you just sit around waiting for the government to give you stuff. As I like to put it, you end up with all cart and no horse.
Naïvely, people think that the answer to every economic problem is to tax the rich. But there are not enough rich people, and they’re not stupid. Even if you have some money, nobody likes having their money taken away – much less confiscated, and then given to people they don’t know. Just because you’re well off doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard for your money.
Already in New York, if you make anything at all, you lose over half your income. That’s a pretty grim experience. Young people always assume that ‘rich’ – a very soft category in tax law – is a definition that will never apply to them. The reality is, you don’t have to make that much money until suddenly you realise your tax bill is outrageous.
Even if Mamdani couldn’t implement his policies, his presence would be bad for the reputation of New York. That does matter. This is a big place. It’s bigger than a lot of countries. When New York goes down the drain, it’s an economically significant event. In Britain, the wealthy are fleeing – and for good reason. People with assets in New York are doubtless now considering whether they want to stay here.
O’Neill: Who do you think Mamdani really represents?
Shriver: I would say it’s young people from upper-middle-class families. I’m in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, right now, and I’m surrounded by these kinds of families. They’re comfortable, they’re established, but their kids are a little despairing. They’re carrying student debt and they don’t have many career prospects. The rents are obscene, so a lot of them are living with parents, which has made them resentful.
There’s a housing crisis across the US, too. Rents have risen everywhere. Once you pay your rent, there’s not much left. I don’t blame young people for being resentful. It’s hard to figure out how to make it, and, as you get older, you also stay resentful if you have to continue to share an apartment with three other people instead of creating your own family.
Brendan O’Neill was talking to Lionel Shriver. Watch the whole conversation here:
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