Sky News Presenter Says Keir Starmer Is Not Waving But Drowning

Keir Starmer is “not waving, but drowning” as he struggles to fight off attempts to kick him out of Downing Street, a Sky News presenter has declared.

Trevor Phillips said “the vultures are circling” around the prime minister in the wake of Labour’s latest election catastrophe.

The party is on course to lose around 1,500 councillors in England following a surge in support for Reform UK and the Green Party.

Labour also lost power in the Welsh Senedd for the first time ever, and was defeated once again by the SNP at Holyrood.

In response, Starmer insisted he “won’t walk away” from his job, and even suggested that he will be PM for another eight years.

On Saturday, the prime minister shocked Westminster by handing jobs to Labour grandees Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman.

Meanwhile, Labour backbencher Catherine West said she will trigger a leadership election unless the cabinet ousts him.

On Sky News this morning, Phillips said: “The smart money says the prime minister won’t be winkled out of Downing Street, but the vultures are circling.”

In a powerful monologue, Phillips added: “On May 7 the British people spoke, and they were brutal. They gave Nigel Farage a fighting force of nearly 1,500 councillors. They boosted [Green Party leader] Zack Polanski’s ranks by getting on for another 500.

“They put leaders in Edinburgh and Cardiff who ultimately want to break up the UK.

“What they said to Sir Keir Starmer was unambiguous: we think your government is a massive letdown, we really can’t see the point of your party and what’s more we really don’t like you very much either.

“The Labour Party is in chaos, with a backbencher threatening to trigger a leadership contest, and several of Starmer’s cabinet members jostling to replace him.

“The prime minister is going to respond tomorrow in what we are promised is a major speech. To rescue his leadership he’ll need something a bit more persuasive than his initial response on Friday morning, which amounted to ‘yes I made mistakes, the biggest of which is not to tell people frequently enough and loudly enough that everything I’ve done is right’.

“It’s quite hard to imagine voters in Barnsley or Hartlepool or Thurrock, where Labour were swept away by Reform, turning to their friends and crying ’if only I’d known they’d bring back Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, I’d definitely have voted for Keir instead of Nigel.

“The prime minister is signalling frantically that he plans to keep going. He talked about being set for a 10 year run. But for all the stirring words and the bravado, this weekend he seems to me, and to many others, to be a man who is not waving, but drowning.”

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