Let's hope pitiful PM didn't start as he means to go on

IT'S THE nicknames that say it all "Free Gear Keir" and "Two Tier Keir" - representing missteps for the new Prime Minister as he reaches his first 100 days in office today. From alienating our global allies to punishing our older generations, there is little Sir Keir has not mishandled.

- Tim Newark

From a government of service to one of "self-service" that cynically times bad news to coincide with grim anniversaries, he is truly a poor leader.

Was it just coincidence or did the PM rid himself of his gaffeprone chief of staff, Sue Gray, just as the world's attention was focusing on the heartbreaking anniversary of Israel's October 7? One would like to think better of a man who, in opposition, prided himself on his virtue and promised a Labour government would do politics differently, only to be mired in a succession of freebie revelations.

Of course, he'd done nothing wrong in receiving these donations but, from a party who doggedly went after Boris Johnson and other Tory leaders over the most minor infractions, it seems a bit rich and reveals Labour are as keen on the trinkets of power as anyone else.

As George Orwell concluded in Animal Farm: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." They all have their snouts in the trough.

BUT IT IS the more substantive issues that have marked Sir Keir as a poor leader. He immediately squandered any electoral goodwill by taking away the winter fuel allowance for millions of older people.