Why Starmer's desperate ‘global statesman’ rebrand isn't fooling anyone

Amid more dire polling for Labour and the revelation that both he and the Defence Secretary were on holiday as Donald Trump threatened to wipe Iran off the map at the weekend, Keir Starmer has now disappeared to the Middle East for meetings with Gulf state leaders. The Telegraph’s political editor Tony Diver tells Camilla and Tim that, despite him having no say in ceasefire talks, this is a desperate, last-ditch strategy to portray Starmer as an international statesman by Number 10, with a local election wipe-out on the cards in May. Elsewhere, Tony also talks Camilla and Tim through his exclusive research that shows the UK is more divided than ever before. 🚨 LIVE EVENT: The Daily T will be going on the road to London (April 27), Cardiff (April 28), Warwick (April 29) and Worthing (April 30) ahead of May’s critical local elections, where you'll have a chance to put your questions to Camilla and Tim. 🎟️ Tickets are limited, book yours now!: We want to hear from you! Email us at thedailyt@telegraph.co.uk or find @dailytpodcast on TikTok, Instagram and X ► Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditor Producers: Lilian Fawcett and Georgia Coan Senior Producer: John Cadigan Executive Producer: Charlotte Seligman Video Producer: William Walters Studio Operator: Meghan Searle Social Media Producer: Nada Aggour Editor: Camilla Tominey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to Why Starmer's desperate ‘global statesman’ rebrand isn't fooling anyone online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Why Starmer's desperate ‘global statesman’ rebrand isn't fooling anyone is an episode from The Two-Minute Briefing by The Telegraph.

This episode is 35:53 long.

This episode was published on Apr 9, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Two-Minute Briefing when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.