White smoke suddenly appeared out of the 10 Downing Street's chimney on 8 May, announcing Starmer's "triumphant" US-British trade deal. No, not really..!
But the current self-appointed "pope" of world capitalism, Donald Trump, and his Oval Office conclave did unexpectedly bump up the "United Kingdom" to first place in the deal-queue - making a trade agreement in record time... And of course blew this pint-sized deal out of all proportion in order to claim it was something "very special".
Quite obviously, Trump needed to manufacture some good news - given that his scheme to change the world and bring peace everywhere within days of taking office has had rather mixed results, while his on-off tariff announcements have injected unprecedented uncertainty into the financial markets. The capitalist class has been tearing its hair out.
Of course, for British PM Keir Starmer, whose popularity is rock bottom and whose party got its worst ever vote share in the local elections on 1 May, this was indeed a "godsend"!
Keir went to Solihull
Starmer chose to pop up for the second time at the Jaguar Land Rover factory to present his "achievement" to the workforce - which was shown on TV standing behind him, looking stony-faced; not a smile to be seen. And why should they have been pleased? As if these workers - exploited, "tiered", casualised and overworked, like all other car workers - actually receive the "fruits of their hard labour"!
The leader of the "party of business" then presented his deal - which was good for the bosses of JLR etc., but as regards workers' interests, lied through his teeth. It was almost like hearing Trump boasting, as he claimed to be "Starmer the deal-maker" who'd first and foremost "always put money in people's pockets". He should tell that to the pensioners and disabled who just had money picked out of their pockets by his government - and as one of its first priorities!
In fact Starmer's only answer to the poverty which affects one in five households is "free breakfast clubs for primary schools", so far established in some 750 schools out of 21,000...
As for the agreement with Trump - it's not a free trade deal, even if tariffs on steel, and aluminium have been cancelled. The tariffs on car exports which Trump had threatened, have only been reduced: from 27.5% to 10% and only for the first 100,000 vehicles. The figures for last year's car exports vary, with the government claiming 101,000 and other websites anything up to, but not more than 106,000. Since sales are predicted to fall in the coming years, maybe Donald Starmer can claim a minor success. Then again, he would, even if he couldn't.
Politicians unfit for purpose
The showbiz in Washington seems to have worked. The dollar recovered after its dramatic slump in the wake of Trump's "Liberation Day".
However, whether the showbiz in Solihull will improve Starmer's ratings, is another question. For now he is doing his best to both imitate the anti-migrant Reform party AND prove he is different from it; i.e., that his is the true party of workers!
So the Employment Rights Bill is presented, for instance, as dramatically changing the fortunes of those on zero-hours contracts... by providing for "guaranteed hours of work" - but nothing much else! Starmer's Bill doesn't even try to do what was written on the tin. Anyway he probably already knows that he cannot count on workers' votes.
This week however, he went even further right-wards with his reference to Britain becoming "a country of strangers" when introducing new restrictions on legal migration. This recalled Tory shadow minister, Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech made in 1968, when he argued that giving immigrants the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of their race, filled him with foreboding and that he saw "the river Tiber foaming with blood"...
Starmer's limits on visas for foreign workers has already upset social care home bosses who say they cannot recruit British workers to care for the elderly - in a sector with over 100,000 unfilled vacancies - being "unable" to pay higher wages to attract them.
But is that even the real issue? Why is elderly social care in the hands of small/medium for-profit "businesses" in the first place? It should have remained in the public sector and been properly funded, all these many years...
It's said that how the elderly are cared for in any society is a measure of that society. There are many ways to judge Starmer's government today - starting with its cut in pensioners' winter fuel allowance, cuts in disabled benefits and now the refusal to tackle the growing crisis in the elderly social care.
Our verdict? It's a government unfit for purpose - just as its predecessors were; proving that it's not a change of government that's needed, but a change in the whole "for profit" system, which they all defend.