Labour is running the world's worst competition. The prize? The destruction of our country - Kelvin MacKenzie

Defence Secretary John Healey refutes suggestions Sir Keir Starmer’s Government is in crisis after the resignation of Angela Rayner |

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Kelvin Mackenzie

By Kelvin Mackenzie


Published: 12/09/2025

- 19:09

There is simply no good news under Keir Starmer, writes the former editor of The Sun

A little-reported survey shows that nearly half of our parents believe their children would be far better off getting the hell out of our clapped-out nation and making their lives and careers abroad.

Incredibly, ethnic minority parents are more up for the move than even the white ones.


So, even though many minorities may only have been here for half an hour, they want out, not necessarily from where they came from, but, at the minimum, to somewhere else.

Who could blame them? Hardly a second goes by without bad, often shocking, news coming out from either No 10 or No 11. Can somebody tell them it’s not a competition?

What’s that? The Deputy Prime Minister’s gone for underpaying tax. I thought she was a working-class hero above all that?

What’s that? Unemployment is up, and so is inflation. I thought those days had disappeared with the Tories?

What’s that? Our US Ambassador turns out to be best pals with a notorious paedophile. Didn’t anybody check how close Mandelson was to Epstein before offering him such a high-profile job? Starmer’s mantra was needs must where the devil drives. Look where that’s got us.

And on and on it goes. No wonder depression among the youngsters is exploding. There is simply no good news under Starmer. And frankly, my sense is that the cloud will last as long as his gloomy countenance dominates politics.

In that survey of 5,886 mums and dads with children aged between four and 18, the most gloomy parents were from the North East, Newcastle, Sunderland or Durham. A staggering 85 per cent expressed worry about their child’s future compared to 51 per cent from London.

Kelvin MacKenzie (left), Keir Starmer (right)

Labour is running the world's worst competition. The prize? The destruction of our country - Kelvin MacKenzie

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More than half of parents fear their child being assaulted (52 per cent), and what is even more worrying is that 42 per cent fear sexual assault. What kind of nation are we creating?

As a parent, you are probably lumbered with living here, watching politicians of every colour gaining your vote through promises they couldn’t keep and, in fact, never believed.

Boris, Truss and Rishi were past masters. I didn’t think it was possible to trump them. Enter Starmer, taking the game to a new level.

He came to power because everybody hated the Tories. Nobody loved Labour. They simply weren’t Conservative, and that was good enough. He promised us a period of calm. In fact, we’ve had a period of storms.

His economic judgment has been woeful. He keeps claiming black holes everywhere. The major hole appears to be within Rachel Reeves' ears. What I found most surprising is his hatred of the middle classes but his love of their money.

The fact that the middle classes either bought a nice house or would like one, perhaps even fancy a one-bed buy-to-let for their pension and liked going to Greece for their holiday, meant they were a major target for his tax-raising, which meant there was little reason to be ambitious.

Why work harder and earn decent money if it was all going to some benefit claimant down the road or perhaps a migrant from Africa who curiously had enough money to pay £10,000 to a smuggler but now demanded that he had a flat and food supplied by the taxpayer?

I agree there is much to be gloomy about, but the sunlit uplands beckon.

We are now in the autumn, and come next Spring, there will be elections in Wales and Scotland. In both cases, Labour will take the most terrible thumping, which, with a bit of luck, will lead to Starmer being pushed out.

Back in the late Seventies, the country was in a similar position. On the flat of its back, the poor man of Europe, where you couldn’t even bury your dead because the mortuaries were on strike.

With my family, I headed to New York City, where I could only wonder at the skyscrapers and the ambition. Everything seemed so possible.

When I returned to the UK, Socialism had been tossed aside and replaced by Margaret Thatcher. Suddenly, everything was possible; the sun had emerged from the clouds.

I feel we are at that moment today. The country is in the depths of despair, but I believe that Farage is a Thatcher figure and can rescue the nation.

Don’t let us down, Nigel.

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