What to do if your teen is disconnected

Tony Blair’s former speech writer, the journalist and academic used to say that the perfect speech is when “you can’t see the scaffolding”.

He meant – one suspects thinking of the good ones he penned – when you can’t see every focus group appeal line, the elephant on the room dodge, the botch welding of two seemingly contradictory positions into one. When you can’t hear the dog whistle, the over blown clarion call, or the deliberately obfuscating wording to ensure you don’t say the thing you can’t say out loud. The scaffolding.

I have long applied this to political communications. When it’s clumsy but trying to be clever, you can ‘see the scaffolding.’

While the US and Israel turn Iranian regime buildings, and – let’s not ignore – a school to rubble, Labour, and the Greens have rapidly built towers of visible scaffolding having spotted an opportunity to try and pick at, and pick off the Conservative position on the Iran war.

Let’s be clear. The foundations for this scaffolding were laid some time ago. Donald Trump is may not now be as popular in America but here, he’s down right unpopular. Within the British public the only Western leader liked less is Netanyahu. Then add a cementing layer of the result of the Gorton and Denton by-election. Labour know that being seen to side with Trump is toxic for them, being seen to side with the Palestinian cause is better and war, especially in the middle east, after the second Iraq war is kryptonite.

Given Starmer is no superman, and was the most unpopular PM of modern times before Trump issued a single pilot into the skies these domestic electoral concerns have become mainstays of the scaffolding erected hastily in recent days.

Labours Comms, and it is transparently co-ordinated, has looked at Reform’s biggest weakness – something that comes out of many focus groups and polling –  the perception that they are too close to Trump, use a Trump playbook, and are trying to emulate the Trump  election success of 2024. Miriam Cates argues this morning on ConHome that endless polling is getting in the way of political principle. Here I’d argue is a case study.

Labour also know, and frankly I’d be shocked by a country that didn’t, that most of the public don’t ‘like’ war. Who would? In the four years I’ve monitored both the public and not so public evidence of the realities of war in Ukraine it is ugly brutal and dehumanising.

Nobody sane wants or likes war, and those that do seldom fight them.

Yet they happen all the same, presenting such countries with stark and difficult choices.

The facts are that a third of the US fleet arrived weeks ago in the Gulf. Trump repeatedly threatened – not least when the Iranian regime was murdering thirty thousand of its own citizens for protesting– that he could resort to bombing Iran. No idle threat since a year ago he did. Netanyahu has had a forty year desire to take the Islamic Republic out of the middle east equation for good. We know that the US requested the potential use of the base at Diego Garcia that the Prime Minister is still wedded to paying billion to give away, and RAF Fairford.

Since a GCSE student in these circumstances could divine that an attack on Iran was very possible, and many officials could divine how Iran, and Iranian proxies might respond, based on track record and perceived enemies, it seems very odd that Starmer ended up vacillating, lacking foresight and damaging diplomatic relations far beyond the ‘special relationship’ and why HMS Dragon has only just left port for the Med, while Macron visits a French vessel already in the area.

A weakened and unpopular Prime Minister before was open to valid criticism of his decision not to allow the use of our bases and to have been flatfooted in the face of something that was happening whether he decided to be ‘involved’ or not. Note Iran does not reward those who are ‘not involved’ it shoots at them anyway. Iran backed Hezbollah – most likely – fired on RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. British sovereign territory. With our service personnel on the site.

The Conservative position was that Government’s first role is to defend its people. Kemi Badenoch suggested since the war was happening regardless of Britian’s position the bases should be used to allow targeted strikes on “the archers not just the arrows”. In the context of the strike on Akrotiri this meant strikes on Hezbollah launching areas, and stockpiles in southern Lebanon.

Quite clearly a narrative has been built in Labour, from top to bottom, and across its supporters and allies to spread a message. A very distorted version of the truth.

This is a cocktail of their narrative, from numerous sources, freely available for others to find but goes something like this:

‘Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage are Trump’s poodles, two war mongers who back bombing women and children, and support illegal wars in a bid to try and be relevant. Thank God Starmer is in charge’

The fact that within days the Government were actually doing, and still are, almost exactly what the Conservatives first proposed is not to be mentioned. Verboten. The only difference is that Labour are letting others do our defending for us.

Now it is true, that still drunk on the so called Cold War peace dividend almost every party in every European country spent decades shrinking defence spending because the world was a safer, rules-based place and America would always step in, but the world has changed and those choices look poor for all parties. It is the Conservatives who have suggested a way to fix it.

It’s also worth remembering that whilst being accused of ‘slashing defence’ the Conservatives still ensured the UK stepped up to help Ukraine as a nation when threatened with total eradication by Vladimir Putin. I didn’t get that from CCHQ, I’ve heard it hundreds of times – from Ukrainians.

So, you can see the scaffolding of this Labour narrative from space.

According to one shadow Cabinet member “Labours comms plan seems to be make out the right are recklessly gung-ho, or dangerous, even war mongering freaks, who appal the public but still slavishly support Trump’s illegal war! It’s cynical rubbish”. I would go further and say Labour are simultaneously draping themselves in a mantle of being ‘sensibly cautious, thoughtful custodians of common sense’ who claim, and I’d bet will again at PMQs today, that politics should be left at the door and opposition should just respectfully agree. And how awful that they don’t.’

It’s an argument.

It’s just not a very good one when all the scaffolding tells you there is politics literally dripping from their position. We should all deplore real anti-Muslim hostility – though whether we need a Tsar or a definition for it is moot at best – but confronting Islamism would seem long overdue. It’s an odd thing to see parts of the left hate Trump and Israel so much they’ll put in a good word for the murderous mullahs of Tehran. Even cardboard cut out ones.

Badenoch isn’t itching to ‘do war’. She’s advocating defending British interests, and if you think Starmer hasn’t damaged those in the long term, even as John Redwood argues this morning, before all this started, then you are living in an isolationist virtue bubble that has no basis in reality or realpolitik.

When this very dangerous and difficult situation is over, and indeed we don’t know how and with what result – part of Trump’s real problem here – the ramifications of our own Government’s early position to sit atop a global fence and watch which way to jump will become very apparent.

You can book mark that.

Lord Redwood is former MP for Wokingham and a former Secretary of State for Wales.

The government has spent its first one year eight months undermining our national security, just in time for a war.

This government of international lawyers, by international lawyers for international lawyers has used its own skewed and incompetent interpretations of human rights, net zero, post-colonial settlements and other international treaties to sell us out and weaken our security. When in doubt they argue the foreigner’s corner.

It has gone for the most extreme version of net zero policy. This makes us more energy dependent on Europe. The high energy prices it induces are leading to  closures of refineries, petrochemical works, fertiliser production, steel blast  furnaces,  and many other energy intensive plants. Our own  oil has to languish in the ground whilst  we pay more for imports that come in on diesel  tankers.  The agricultural policy  makes us ever  more dependent on imported food.

If the government knew our history, they would know that we have always been invaded by continental European enemies .  The Romans from Italy succeeded in 55 BC, the Nordic Vikings in the post Roman occupation,  the French Normans in 1066 and the Netherlands in 1688. The Germans failed twice in the twentieth century, The French failed around 1800, the Spanish failed in 1588.

Our defences have relied on a strong navy and more recently on sea  power buttressed by air power.  The country suffered badly in the two world wars of the last century from submarine attacks on shipping making it difficult to supply food and munitions from abroad. Dig for victory, home shipyards, UK chemicals for explosives and home produced steel for weapons were all crucial to survival. At peak production in 1943 the UK made 26,000 warplanes  in UK factories. We couldn’t make 24 today.

This government is so keen on reducing UK CO 2 output it overlooks the fact that most of its food, energy  and industrial policies increase world CO 2 by making us more import dependent. After years in the Common Agricultural policy which drove  down our home produced food, they  are now giving grant and permits  to wild our farms or get them to move  to solar  panels.  Apparently, we need to shift farms out of farming or tax them to close them down. We currently rely heavily on imports  for steel, chemicals and  weapons.

Who would supply those if our seas were prey to the enemy or if our European suppliers were occupied? We would not be able to outlive a submarine blockade of our trade.

Over the last week against the background of evidence of the evil intent of Iran and its allies, the government has moved to give away powers over Gibraltar and to pay money to Spain on top of the give aways. Gibraltar is our crucial air and naval base in the western Mediterranean where EU/Spanish officials will now have powers over who can enter British territory. The EU will impose laws on Gibraltar. Why do that? Spain has always been out to make life difficult for the UK and wants to take Gibraltar over completely. Spain did not help the UK over the violent illegal seizure of the Falklands and disagrees with US/UK action in the Middle East.

The message of past conflicts is twofold. The UK needs to be able to fight alone, as in 1940. The UK needs to produce enough food at home to feed its people, and to produce enough weapons and materials at home to sustain the fighting.

The wish to give Chagos away with a dowry to an ally of China is madness. Mauritius is a non-nuclear country who will take the freehold of this crucial UK/US base with its nuclear facilities. Mauritius may licence Chinese vessels to fish and eavesdrop in adjacent waters.

The wish to tie more of our weapons procurement into pan European collaboration weakens us gravely. You can only rely on weapons you can make for yourself to designs you control from raw materials you produce.

How can you be an important power with no basic steel industry?  How can you fight a war if you need imported explosives and computer chips? How can you project your power abroad to protect your trade routes and sea lanes if you have lost full control of your main foreign bases?

The UK National Security Council led by the PM is making us ever more dependent on imports. It would take just a few cut submarine cables to plunge parts of UK into power cuts. It would be impossible to expand our fleet and airwing quickly using UK industry. We would not be able to feed ourselves if we suffered a blockade. This is a dangerous world. The UK needs to be better defended. The  UK needs to be more self-reliant. Government needs to reverse its net zero bans, get our fish back, support more food growing, commission more capacity to build ships and weapons, ensure  we have good drone, missile and cyber technology and secure the  intellectual property it needs to back the military.

The recent shocking Ministerial failure to get a single destroyer or aircraft carrier to The Med should force a big re think. We need a UK Iron Dome, we need more naval ships and planes and we need much better value for our tax money.

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com

Last month I analysed what my polling revealed about whether and how the Conservatives can “unite the right” in a fragmented political landscape.

Now we look at the other side of the fence.

With debate raging over Britain’s role in the Middle East conflict, Shabana Mahmood’s migration reforms and the implications of the Gorton & Denton by-election, what is the state of the left-of-centre voting coalition under the biggest Labour majority for nearly 30 years? With Reform ahead in the polls, can the left mobilise to keep the right out of office?

In my latest poll we asked people whether they would, in the event of a hung parliament, prefer a coalition between the Conservatives and Reform or a coalition between Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Those who preferred the latter (43 per cent of all voters) were asked whether they would be willing to vote tactically to prevent a Conservative or Reform candidate winning. Nearly nine in ten of them said they would, with no significant difference by current voting intention.

At face value, this augurs well for uniting the left. Assuming that left-leaning voters can always identify the tactical anti-right candidate their own seat (quite a big assumption), 87 per cent would back this candidate. With the combined vote share for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens on 47 per cent, this implies that over 40 per cent of voters would vote tactically for a “left bloc” candidate. By contrast, as we also found, the combined vote share for a Conservative-Reform alliance is in the mid-30s.

But can we take it this face value?

To find out, we asked one further question: whether there were any parties that people would be unwilling to support, even as a tactical vote. Here we begin to see the dents in left-of-centre solidarity. Just over half of Green and Lib Dem supporters, and just under two thirds of Labour supporters, say they would be prepared to vote for any of the others. But a quarter of Lib Dems and three in ten Greens say they wouldn’t vote Labour; a fifth of Greens wouldn’t vote Lib Dem; and almost as many Labour supporters say they wouldn’t vote Green.

The chart below breaks down current Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters into three categories:

• Flexibles, who prefer a Labour-Lib Dem-Green coalition and who are willing to vote tactically for any of these parties
• Selectives, who prefer a Labour-Lib Dem-Green coalition but are unwilling to vote for at least one of these parties
• Splitters, who say they would vote for one of these three parties but do not prefer a Labour-Lib Dem-Green coalition (they either prefer a Conservative-Reform coalition, or don’t know which they prefer)

About two-thirds of current Labour voters are Flexibles, compared with about half of Green voters and just over two-fifths of Lib Dem voters. This resistance to tactical voting amongst Lib Dems might seem surprising. In the first place, a significant minority of them do not prefer a left-wing coalition government in the event of a hung parliament (though only 19 per cent of Lib Dem Splitters actually prefer a Tory-Reform coalition). This echoes the dilemma the Lib Dems faced in 2019: neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Boris Johnson were acceptable Prime Ministers to sizeable chunks of their voter base, leading to the ill-fated decision to try positioning Jo Swinson as the next PM rather than a moderating influence in a coalition government. A second factor is that the Lib Dems gained 60 seats from the Conservatives in 2024 on the back of concentrated tactical voting; many of their supporters have already identified the Lib Dems as the tactical vote in their constituency.

Many Green voters resent what they regard as Labour’s move to the centre under Keir Starmer, as well as those who have not forgiven the Lib Dems for entering a coalition with David Cameron. Just 72 per cent of Green voters who prefer a left coalition would consider a tactical vote for Labour; 82 per cent would be prepared to vote Lib Dem. Green Splitters prefer both Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch over Keir Starmer, which may well represent a visceral disapproval of Starmer rather than any positive endorsement.

Labour voters, meanwhile, are the most flexible of the three, as the party found to its cost in Gorton and Denton. While the sample among Scottish respondents is too small to be more than indicative, the same analysis for SNP voters suggests that fewer than one in five are flexible – unsurprising, given the nationalist/unionist divide.

Looking specifically at the willingness to vote Labour, only 37 per cent of voters are prepared to back Labour as either their first choice or as a tactical vote against the Conservatives and/or Reform. If the acid test for tactical voting is in the willingness for people to vote for an unpopular incumbent, this is an unconvincing result. Could this be a manifestation of disappointment with the government which will soften with proximity to the election as voters face a starker choice between left and right?

Our political map shows the position and proximity of various important voter groups, including the dispersed and fragmented parts of a putative coalition of the left. The size of the group is proportional to the size of the group it represents:

Even if these three parties could between them secure a parliamentary majority, maintaining such a coalition government would involve keeping on board very different kinds of voters. A coalition between just Labour and the Lib Dems would cover quite a compact and coherent area of the map. But a coalition of all three parties would mean retaining not only the groups on the left-hand side, but Lib Dems at the “12.30” position and Green voters as far round as “4.30”.

Other questions help to illustrate the problem. Majorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters prioritise growth, jobs and lower energy prices over climate change; a bigger majority of Green voters do the reverse. Labour and Lib Dem voters are much more sceptical about the benefits of immigration than Green voters, and more than twice as likely to say more should be spent on defence at the expense of welfare and benefits.

While there is common ground between the three parties’ supporters, these are more profound differences which would not disappear with a change of Labour leader or a finely crafted campaign message. One of the causes of this government’s travails is that the broad but shallow backing it received in 2024 requires it to maintain support from opposite areas of the political map – a feat which would challenge far more able administrations.

If this is difficult with a parliamentary supermajority, achieving it with a tripartite coalition – which may well have a slender majority or even no majority at all – would be a formidable challenge. Keeping the right out at the next election is the easy part; governing would be another thing altogether.

Full data tables at LordAshcroftPolls.com

The US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran has become a déjà vu moment for Labour members, reminding them of Blair’s unforgivable decision to invade Iraq – while Starmer continues to hum and haw.

Tony Blair was eager to go to war, dismissing the warnings of anti-war voices within his party. Their opposition was drowned out as the invasion went ahead, killing one million people, and marking the opening chapter of America’s forever wars in the Middle East.

That’s not taking into account deaths caused indirectly due to the devastation inflicted across the territories, which is said to have led to the deaths of at least 3.6 million people. This brings the total death toll to approximately 4.5-4.7 million as a result of US military operations.

This time around, the Iran on war, and the UK’s role more specifically, risks splitting the Labour Party

UnHerd recently reported that far more MPs are speaking out against foreign military intervention now than in 2003, when Blair dragged the UK into the geopolitical punch-up over Iraq’s oil. Unlike Blair’s time, they argue that a party now exists to the left of Labour may prove an attractive option for anti-war, socialist MPs tired of Starmer’s duplicity.

‘While only two government MPs defected to the Lib Dems during the Blair years, Starmer could be facing an exodus.’

Will anti-war MPs flee Labour if Britain becomes involved in the Iran conflict? @peterfranklin_ 👇 https://t.co/4zwW6d7CcS

— UnHerd (@unherd) March 1, 2026

Starmer sitting on the fence

UnHerd points out that Starmer has not followed the same path as war-hungry Blair, who has built a dirty career on the suffering of ordinary Iraqis. At least for now, although the pendulum way soon swing, Starmer has sheepishly opted for the middle ground. The outlet raises several questions for which there are no immediate answers:

Did he choose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his fellow Anglosphere leaders or did he join Europe in sitting on the fence?

A statement from the leaders of the “E3” — Germany, France and the UK — made his position painfully clear. Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, and Keir Starmer agree that the Iranian regime is a terrible threat to our security. However, they’re keen to point out “we did not participate in these strikes”.

Starmer and his team have desperately clung to the middle ground — sometimes shimmying to the right, but mostly bending the knee to the party’s right-wing contingent, including allied foreign billionaires. Both actions reflect Starmer’s desperation to extend his political shelf-life and address the party’s legitimacy crisis.

However, as UnHerd points out, even in Blair’s time, there were multiple defections to the Lib Dems. Many found it hard to stomach the desecration of Labour, with Blair eagerly beating the drums of war as the party’s maestro. At the time, the Lib Dems were to the right of Labour, marking a significant ideological shift.

A move to the Green Party, especially after their Gorton and Denton by-election win, must be tempting for disillusioned Labour MPs. It’s already clear that Labour is losing the progressive vote to Polanski’s principled leadership.

Was it only the Labour Party that repeatedly, very belligerently insisted that this was excellent political strategy and that the public would love it? And this was so obviously correct, so clearly undeniable, that only stupid or crazy people would resist https://t.co/7a1618ovo6

— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) March 10, 2026

Meanwhile, Your party MP, Zarah Sultana, has used her platform to oppose imperialism and challenge Starmer’s lapdog approach — kowtowing to Trump.

I asked the Prime Minister how much he enjoys being Donald Trump’s poodle.

He didn’t answer. pic.twitter.com/hzBjAJ1o84

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 2, 2026

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UnHerd also wrote of Zack Polanski’s ‘unambiguous’ position:

“This is an illegal, unprovoked and brutal attack that shows once again that the USA and Israel are rogue states.”

They also highlighted the cracks forming within the current Labour Party, with possible splintering towards socialist alternatives:

The most immediate concern will be over the 24 MPs of the Socialist Campaign Group. SCG members like Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon and Nadia Whittome have already issued statements that are closer to Polanski’s position than Starmer’s. Some Labour MPs take the polar opposite view. For instance, David Taylor has told certain colleagues to “shut up, Iranians don’t want to hear your hypocritical, idiotic opinions”.

Perhaps the biggest headache, though, is posed by MPs like Emily Thornberry who aren’t on the hard Left, but who believe that America’s actions are “illegal”. There’s now growing pressure on ministers to reveal whether or not Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, has taken the same line in his advice to the Prime Minister.

Only support will be right-wing support

UnHerd underscored the threat facing Keir Starmer and the risk of alienating those on the left by giving in to Trump’s demands. In turn, Starmer would have to turn to the Tories and far-right parties like Reform, Restore, and Advance to rally support for another disastrous war in the Middle East.

The nightmare scenario is that, like Blair before him, he’d have to turn to the Tories for support. Rather than put his colleagues to the test, he’ll keep playing for time. The longer the conflict goes on, the more likely it is he’ll face a crunch decision that could either break the Special Relationship or the Labour Party.

Nevertheless, jumping into war — whether eagerly or reluctantly — would be a death knell for the party’s original mission as a pro-people, working-class party. The rich would watch comfortably from their ivory towers while working people are hurled into combat and sent to die. They would reap the rewards from open access to Iranian oil, sending the country back into the dark ages.

For now, it’s too soon to tell if Starmer will turn his back on America or become Blair-lite.

Featured image via the Canary