If it’s Tuesday, it must be Baku. Keir Starmer’s Rolling Thunder Permatour has now hit Azerbaijan for Cop29. Next week he will be off to Brazil for the G20. And who knows, he might even drop in to see Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the way back.
After all it’s been almost a month since he was last in the US having dinner with The Donald in his understated golden penthouse. He wouldn’t want to appear too needy, of course, but why pass up an opportunity to persuade the president-elect that he had never really meant any of those beastly things he had said about him in the past. Just a joke. Hahaha. Lols.
The prime minister has been in office for just over four months and he’s already clocked up as many air miles as the ever-eager James “Turn left at the aircraft door” Cleverly managed in his time as foreign secretary. Countless trips to Europe that barely register. Only on Monday he was in Paris for an Armistice Day service and a ride with Emmanuel Macron in the largest Jeep you’ve ever seen. It sure as hell beats a cold day in Westminster.
Only a couple of weeks ago, Starmer was in Samoa for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, where he looked rather out of sorts in a shirt and tie when compared with the Australian prime minister. Anthony Albanese was dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. Keir doesn’t really do casual. However he did have to be restrained from stopping off in the Middle East on the way out and Australia and New Zealand on the way back. You can have too good a time of it. Some trips will have to wait till next year.
Just about the only place Starmer has yet to visit is Ukraine. Though that hasn’t been for want of trying. The prime minister is as keen as other western leaders to get a selfie with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But the rumours are that Ukrainians have found they are otherwise engaged watching TV on every day that Keir’s minders suggest. Rishi Sunak always used to come with bundles of cash and a limitless supply of weapons. Starmer has yet to stump up. It will take a couple of cruise missiles in his back pocket to get Volodymyr out of bed.
You can see the attraction of all this overseas travel. After years of being some no-mark leader of the opposition, lucky to get an invitation to the Kebab awards, Keir has finally become an A-list celeb. Motorcades greet him at the airport. Every traffic light turns to green. Other world leaders – well, most of them – find time in their diaries for bilateral meetings where usually little more than platitudes are discussed. It’s the warmest of warm ego-baths. A change from being asked tricky questions by journalists and opposition MPs. A chap could get used to it.
Best of all, you could justify every trip. Missing your first ever G7 and G20 meetings would be a no-no. As would your first Chogm. And Cop summit. It was just a shame that so many of his new best friends had chosen to give Baku a swerve. The only other G7 leader to make the effort had been Giorgia Meloni and it would have been much nicer to see her in the grounds of the Villa Pamphili again. Remembrance of Septembers past.
Cop29 didn’t get off to the best of starts. There was a general feeling of “why are we here again when so many are staying away”. And the Azerbaijan president, Ilham Aliyev, rather killed the green vibe by declaring his oil reserves to be a “gift from God”. Maybe we would be feeling the same way if we had something to show for North Sea oil, but we appeared to have spent all the money long ago for no tangible reward.
Still, Starmer was determined to look on the bright side and not let anything get him down. The fact that Britain had bothered to show up didn’t just show how seriously we took the climate crisis; it proved we were open for business, he told his press conference on Tuesday. Other countries would remember us when investing in new technologies. Somehow, money would come flooding in to Green UK. Luckily there was no one around to contradict him. That’s one of the benefits of a near empty conference room.
Then came the questions from the journalists fortunate enough to have made the 24-hour round trip. Most were quite keen on the new targets for the UK to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels, but they couldn’t help noticing that Starmer had been rather short on detail about how this might be achieved. “We’re not going to tell people how to live their lives,” Keir insisted. A bold claim from a prime minister who is committed to get as many people to stop smoking as possible. “It’s my plan and my target.”
And people would automatically want to do the right thing. Use their private jets less frequently. Ditch their gas boilers. It couldn’t be called a nanny state if people were happy to be nannied. Somehow emissions would come down without anyone really having to make any effort.
And that was the last we heard of the climate crisis from Starmer at Baku. Because every other question was on domestic issues. Did he think Justin Welby should resign? Keir wisely decided that was above his pay grade. Not least because he could sense the resignation was imminent and there was no need to stir animosity.
What was his position on assisted dying? Er … he would wait and see. Keir is not in the business of having an opinion that might attract attention until it is strictly necessary. A question about Trump was swatted away as yet another hypothetical. File until later. Wait to see what he does. Not what he says. It’s not a bad way of dealing with someone who doesn’t even know what he’s doing himself.
Within a couple of hours, Starmer was on the plane home. Tuning in to Labour MP Diana Johnson declaring she would be making shoplifting illegal. Er … it already is. But Labour were now going to make it even more illegal. Keir began to doze off. All was well. This time next week he would be in Rio.
Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
