Harriet Harman has praised Sir Keir Starmer’s comments in an interview with the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, which she co-hosts, saying he resisted “grandstanding” in his opposition to Donald Trump’s position on Iran, and “really owned” his mistake with Peter Mandelson.
Speaking on the podcast following the full interview (which you can tap here to listen to), the former Labour deputy leader said his comments about the US president were “calibrated… really well”.
Harman said of the PM: “I think he, whilst taking this different position [to Trump], he resisted the temptation to do grandstanding, which I would have found very worrying.”
She said he “might have been tempted to do that” because his response to the war in Iran has been mentioned “spontaneously” on doorsteps and received “positively”.
“And he didn’t take the wrong message from that and overdo it,” she said.
She explained that while Starmer was clear that he will not be pressured into joining the war in Iran, he still wants to “be on good terms” with the US president, and so “he’s calibrated that really well”.
Harman also said that she was “very struck” by how Starmer described his regret for appointing Mandeson as ambassador to the US.
“What he didn’t say is, ‘oh, well, it was a bad decision, but it was because Peter Mandelson lied to me’, or ‘I take responsibility for it’ – which usually means you’re taking responsibility for a decision somebody else has made,” she said.
“It was very heartfelt. He said he hated the mistake, hated the mistake he’d made, that he dwelt on it. It was obviously still burdening him, and that however much other people beat him up on it, he beats himself up more.
“And the fact that he linked it back to women and girls and somehow letting down women and girls by just disregarding them in terms of the abuse of Epstein when he appointed Peter Mandelson – I thought he really owned it, and I’ve been very critical of him on this. But that was good enough for me.”
Leave a Reply