A YEAR OF KIER

Ladies and gentlemen, gather round the digital campfire as we roast the singularly uninspiring figure of Keir Starmer, the man who ascended to the lofty perch of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on this day a year ago in 2024, only to prove himself a walking monument to mediocrity. 

If ever there were a case study in how to squander a nation’s trust with the grace of a drunken elephant, it is this bespectacled barrister-turned-political-puppet, whose tenure will surely earn him a reserved spot in the annals of history—and, let’s be frank, the infernos of hell—as the worst to ever clutch the reins of power. Let us, with the dry wit of a Clive James sipping a lukewarm gin and tonic, dismantle this man’s integrity, humanity, and very existence with the precision of a surgeon wielding a rusty spoon.

Imagine, if you will, a government that serves the people first, speaks with the candour of a confessional priest, and treats its citizens as adults rather than witless sheep. Now banish that fantasy, for it has no place in the circus tent presided over by Starmer, a man whose idea of leadership seems to involve whispering platitudes while picking the public’s pockets with the subtlety of a pickpocket at a crowded Tube station. Once upon a time, the 1980s and ‘90s gifted us with political heavyweights—thinkers who could string a sentence together without consulting a focus group. Today, we’re saddled with Starmer, a man whose intellectual heft suggests he might struggle to win a debate with a particularly dim-witted tortoise. Where once we had public servants, we now have a parade of chancers, corporatists, and reality TV rejects, with Starmer as the ringmaster of this grotesque vaudeville act.

Let us turn our gaze to the man himself, a figure so devoid of charisma that he makes a damp dishcloth seem vibrant. Starmer, with his lawyerly demeanor and sanctimonious air, presents himself as a guardian of justice, yet his past as Director of Public Prosecutions (2011-2014) reveals a man who greenlit the Twitter Joke Trial—a prosecution so absurd it could only have been conceived by someone with the humor of a tax return and the empathy of a parking meter. The Crown Prosecution Service, naturally, denied he had a hand in it, claiming it was out of his jurisdiction, but one can’t help but picture Starmer nodding sagely as the wheels of petty bureaucracy crushed a man’s life for a jest. And then there’s the Jimmy Savile scandal, where his leadership allowed a predator to roam free until the dam burst in 2012. “It was like a dam had burst,” he lamented, as if he were merely a bystander rather than the man at the helm. Oh, Keir, your crocodile tears could fill the Thames, yet they wash away no guilt.

This is a man whose humanity appears to have been misplaced somewhere between his law books and his Labour Party membership card. While pensioners shiver in unheated homes, small businesses crumble, and farmers face ruin, Starmer jets off to lavish parties, his second-home heating bills footed by the taxpayer. Last winter, as energy companies raked in record profits, he presided over a cost-of-living crisis with the detached air of a monarch surveying his serfs. One might forgive a leader for such disconnect if they showed a flicker of remorse, but Starmer’s face—perpetually set in a expression that suggests he’s just smelled something unpleasant—offers no such solace. His is a soul calibrated for self-preservation, not service, a political parasite feasting on the carcass of a once-great nation.

And what of his vision? Starmer’s government is a masterclass in distraction, whipping up culture wars to divide while orchestrating what James Melville so aptly calls “the biggest asset grab in the history of the planet.” Digital IDs and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) loom on the horizon, with the Bank of England’s 2023 consultation hinting at a digital pound—a tool, one suspects, that Starmer would wield to monitor every citizen’s grocery list with the glee of a Big Brother auditionee. This is a man who would frame such Orwellian overreach as being “in our best interests,” a swindle so brazen it makes the Lavender List of Harold Wilson’s day look like a charity raffle. Meanwhile, the British economy groans under £900bn+ of quantitative easing, a trade deficit, and a productivity lag that the OECD pegged at 17% below the G7 average in 2022. Starmer’s response? A shrug and a promise of more imports, as if the nation’s industrial heart hadn’t been hollowed out since the 1970s.

Let us not forget his personal ambitions, which seem to mirror the wealth-hoarding exploits of his predecessor Tony Blair. Is Starmer “eyeballing” a post-office fortune, perhaps? One can imagine him, in retirement, penning a memoir titled My Journey to Mediocrity, raking in advances while the disabled, the homeless, and the forgotten rot in the shadows of his neglect. His policies—if one can dignify them with that term—offer no reboot for crumbling infrastructures or rotting communities, only a continuation of decline dressed up as progress.

In the spirit of George Carlin, whose words Melville invokes, “Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realise the government doesn’t give a fuck about them.” Starmer, with his hollow promises and technocratic allies, embodies this truth. He is a man who has no business leading, a figure whose legacy will be etched not in gold but in the rust of a nation’s despair. History will remember him not as a statesman, but as a cautionary tale—a Prime Minister so inept, so devoid of integrity, that even the clowns in his circus might blush. And hell? Well, they’ll have to expand the guest list to accommodate this particular demon of democracy’s demise. His reign is a tragedy, and his exit can’t come soon enough.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "HILL" (2025)

In the annals of Formula 1, where egos roar louder than engines and tragedy lurks like a badly timed pit stop, the 2025 documentary Hill (Sky Documentaries, July 2, 9pm) emerges as a triumph of introspection over horsepower. Directed by Alex Holmes with the precision of a Williams mechanic, this 90-minute gem polishes the tarnished legacy of Damon Hill, a man who, as he confesses in his splendidly candid autobiography Watching the Wheels, never even wanted to be a racing driver. Yet, like a reluctant gladiator thrust into the Colosseum, he carved a world championship from the wreckage of his father’s shadow. And, my word, doesn’t this film make you glad he did?

Clive James, that maestro of the wry aside, once described Hill’s prose in Watching the Wheels as "breathing speed while remaining brilliant in its restraint". The documentary takes this baton and sprints, weaving a narrative so taut it could double as a suspension cable. Holmes, no stranger to wringing drama from real life (Maiden, The Rig), jettisons the tired sports-doc trope of endless slow-motion crashes for something far rarer: a psychological excavation of a man who raced not for glory, but to outrun his own ghosts. The editing, courtesy of Cinzia Baldessari, is a masterclass in temporal sleight-of-hand, juxtaposing grainy home videos of a young Damon—grinning under the weight of his father Graham’s charisma—with the steely-eyed F1 contender of the ‘90s. One moment, we’re watching a boy idolise his two-time champion father; the next, we’re at Suzuka 1996, where Damon clinches the title, and the cinema audience, as one Letterboxd punter noted, erupts like they’ve just seen Lazarus take the chequered flag. It’s a structural gambit that mirrors the non-linear chaos of memory itself, and it works with the elegance of a perfectly executed chicane.

What elevates Hill above the usual sporting hagiography—those banal PR puff pieces that litter the genre like discarded Pirelli slicks—is the unfiltered openness of Damon and his wife, Georgie. The film, wisely, ditches talking heads like Patrick Head and Adrian Newey to focus solely on the Hills, a decision producer Simon Lazenby defends as keeping the “unique family story” pure. Georgie, the film’s quiet MVP, is a revelation, her recollections as sharp as a gear shift and twice as poignant. “He’s one of the saddest people I’ve ever met,” she says of her husband, a line that lands like a gut punch in a film that dares to linger on Damon’s melancholy. Her account of their courtship—Damon, leather-clad and brooding on a motorbike, a Hamlet on two wheels—echoes the raw honesty of Watching the Wheels, where Hill admits to feeling he “would like to have been with [his father] on the plane” after Graham’s 1975 crash. 

That tragedy, which left the Hill family penniless and Damon adrift at 15, is the fulcrum of his mental journey, and the documentary doesn’t shy away from its weight. Instead, it leans in, showing a man who, as he writes in his book, was “angry at the world” but channelled that rage into a determination Georgie calls unmatched. Holmes and Baldessari’s editing doesn’t just narrate; it interrogates. A haunting superimposition of Graham’s face over Damon’s visor as he tears around a track is both a visual poem and a psychological dagger, suggesting a son forever racing in his father’s reflection. 

It’s a touch too on-the-nose, perhaps, but forgivable when the film so deftly balances such flourishes with rawer moments—like Georgie’s memory of Ayrton Senna’s kindness hours before his fatal 1994 Imola crash, or Damon’s admission of suicidal thoughts post-Graham’s death. These aren’t mere anecdotes; they’re the scaffolding of a man rebuilding himself lap by lap, a theme Watching the Wheels explores with similar candour as Hill dissects his “conditional confidence and the thin ledge” of his 1993 psyche.

If Hill has a flaw, it’s that it occasionally feels like a 90-minute sprint when a longer race might have let us linger in Damon’s quieter moments—say, his charity work for Down’s Syndrome, inspired by his son Oliver, or his post-racing therapy, which he mentions in both book and film. But this is a quibble. The documentary, like Hill’s autobiography, is a refreshingly honest account of a man who didn’t just win races but wrestled with a legacy that nearly broke him. It’s a film that makes you cheer not for the podium, but for the man who, as Georgie so perfectly puts it, was “joking around” on the surface while carrying a sadness deep enough to drown in. In an era of sanitised sports docs, Hill is a glorious anomaly: a story of speed that dares to slow down and feel.

I HATE TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO … BUT I TOLD YOU SO

Oh, dear reader, where do we begin with this latest chapter of Britain’s political pantomime? The air is thick with the scent of regret, wafting like a poorly ventilated pie shop from the collective nostrils of the British electorate. I hate to say I told you so—truly, I do—but the evidence is as inescapable as a tax demand from HMRC. You, my dear voters, were so hell-bent on giving the Tories the boot that you failed to notice you’d invited a troupe of clowns into Number 10, led by the aptly nicknamed “Two Tier Keir” Starmer. And now, like a hungover reveller waking up next to a stranger, you’re staring at the mess and wondering how it all went so spectacularly wrong.

Let’s rewind to that fateful election, shall we? The Conservative Party, after years of presiding over Brexit chaos, Partygate shenanigans, and economic stumbles that would make a tightrope walker blush, had become the political equivalent of a stale biscuit—nobody wanted them, but nobody had a better tin to raid. Enter Labour, with Keir Starmer at the helm, a man whose charisma could be outshone by a damp dishcloth but whose promises gleamed like freshly polished silver. The electorate, in a fit of righteous fury, decided the Tories had to go. Fair enough—anger is a fine motivator, like a strong cup of tea on a dreary morning. But here’s where the plot thickens: in your zeal to eject the blue team, you didn’t bother to check the small print on the red team’s manifesto. You didn’t ask, “Who, exactly, are we voting in?” It was less a considered choice and more a blindfolded dart throw at the ballot box, and now we’re all paying the price.

 

I got tired of warning people not to vote Labour. All I saw on X was "They can’t be worse than the Tories" / "We've just got to get rid of the Tories". Hmm, how did that work out, you prophets of the bleeding obvious?! The outcome is a masterclass in self-flagellation, a wry nod to the fact that Labour’s reign has turned out to be less a shining beacon of hope and more a dimly lit corridor of disappointment. A year into Starmer’s tenure—yes, a whole year, marked by the kind of public approval ratings that would make a reality TV contestant weep—61% of Britons are dissatisfied, according to the latest Ipsos poll. That’s a net satisfaction score of -34, putting him in the ignominious company of Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson, two names that echo like the tolling of a funeral bell for political careers. And yet, here we are, surprised as if we’d bet on a three-legged blind horse with dementia and expected it to win the Derby.

The trouble, as one X poster so astutely notes, is that there’s nobody better to replace Starmer in the Labour Party. It’s a bit like realising the only alternative to a leaky roof is a tent made of tissue paper. The electorate, in its wisdom, traded one set of woes for another, all because the focus was on vengeance rather than vision. You see, the British voter has a habit of treating elections like a reality show eviction—out with the old, in with the new, no questions asked. But governments, unlike contestants on "I’m a Celebrity …" don’t come with a pre-screened script or a promise of redemption. They’re a reflection of us, and if we choose them with the intellectual rigour of a toddler picking sweets, well, we get the politicians we deserve. And let’s not kid ourselves—this isn’t the first time we’ve stumbled into this trap. 

Cast your mind back to the 1970s, when Harold Wilson’s minority government staggered under the weight of economic strife and public discontent, only to be swept away by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. The parallels are uncanny: a Labour leader struggling to inspire, a public fed up with the status quo, and a vote cast more in hope than in judgment. History, that cruellest of teachers, is whispering its lessons, but we’re too busy humming pop tunes to listen. Today’s dissatisfaction—fuelled by perceptions of “two-tier” governance, where some communities seem to get the VIP treatment while others are left with the bill—mirrors those turbulent times. A 2023 YouGov poll found 45% of respondents already felt Starmer’s Labour was playing favourites, a sentiment that’s only fermented like bad wine over the past year.

So, what’s the takeaway from this sorry saga? It’s a warning, dear electorate, etched in the sardonic ink of hindsight. A government is only as good as the people who choose it, and if that choice is made with the attention span of a goldfish and the foresight of a blindfolded archer, then don’t be surprised when the arrows land in the wrong target. The ballot box is not a toy; it’s a tool, and wielding it requires thought, not just temper. Next time—and there will be a next time, mark my words—pause before you cast your vote. Ask not just who you’re ejecting, but who you’re embracing. 

Because if you don’t, I’ll be here again, pen in hand, hating to say I told you so, while you’re left wondering why the political circus keeps pitching its tent in your backyard. In the meantime, enjoy the show. The clowns are in charge, and the popcorn’s on you.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS "F1: THE MOVIE" (2025)

One must approach "F1", the latest petrol-soaked offering from Hollywood’s dream factory, with the same cautious optimism one reserves for a Formula 1 car screaming past at 200 miles an hour: it’s thrilling, it’s loud, and it’s almost certainly going to spin off into the gravel if you look at it too closely. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, who last brought us the inexplicably watchable "Top Gun: Maverick", "F1" is a film that knows its strengths—namely, its capacity to make very fast cars look very pretty—and leans into them with the subtlety of a pit crew swapping tyres in a thunderstorm. The result is a cinematic experience that dazzles the retina while occasionally insulting the cerebrum, a high-octane confection that roars triumphantly around the track but stumbles when it tries to walk among mere mortals. 

Let us begin with the good, for there is much to admire, provided you keep your expectations tethered to the visual rather than the intellectual. The racing scenes in "F1" are, quite simply, a triumph of choreography and camera. Kosinski, ever the technician, has somehow persuaded actual Formula 1 teams to lend their gleaming machines to his cause, and the result is a ballet of carbon fibre and combustion that makes your pulse quicken despite yourself. The cameras, mounted on cars, drones, and possibly the occasional over-caffeinated gaffer, capture every screeching tyre and glinting aerodynamic curve with a precision that borders on the pornographic. The Abu Dhabi sequence, in particular, is a love letter to the Arabian peninsula, all azure skies and hairpin turns, shot with such crystalline clarity that you can almost smell the burning rubber and the existential dread of the third assistant director. It’s a spectacle that makes you forgive, momentarily, the fact that the film’s budget could have funded an actual Grand Prix.

The cinematography, courtesy of Claudio Miranda, is equally splendid, bathing the circuits in a golden glow that suggests God himself has a sponsorship deal with Red Bull. Whether it’s the rain-slicked tarmac of Monza or the neon-drenched night race in Las Vegas, every frame is a postcard, every shot a reminder that Hollywood can still make the world look more beautiful than it has any right to be. Compared to the gritty, almost documentary-like authenticity of Steve McQueen’s "Le Mans" (1971), "F1" is unapologetically polished, but there’s a certain charm in its refusal to pretend it’s anything other than a blockbuster. Where McQueen’s film felt like it was shot by a man who’d spent too long sniffing exhaust fumes and loving every second of it, "F1" is a calculated dazzle, a film that knows you’ve paid for escapism and delivers it by the gallon. And yet, for all its visual splendour, "F1" cannot escape the gravitational pull of its own Hollywood-ness, a force as relentless as the G-forces its drivers endure. 

The plot, such as it is, feels like it was assembled from a kit labelled “Generic Sports Movie, Some Assembly Required.” Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a grizzled ex-driver coaxed out of retirement to mentor a hotshot rookie (Damson Idris) and save a struggling team from financial ruin. It’s a narrative so familiar you can recite the beats in your sleep: the early defeat, the training montage, the inevitable betrayal, the redemptive final race. If you’ve seen "Rocky", "The Karate Kid", or, heaven help us, "Days of Thunder", you’ve already got the gist. The script, penned by Ehren Kruger, seems to have been written with a checklist in one hand and a martini in the other, ticking off clichés with the enthusiasm of a pit-lane mechanic. There’s even a love interest, played by Kerry Condon, who exists primarily to gaze soulfully at Pitt and remind us that even racing drivers need someone to disappoint besides themselves.

The acting, alas, does little to elevate the material. Pitt, ever the charismatic enigma, coasts through the film on charm and cheekbones, his performance a masterclass in looking good while squinting. He’s not bad, mind you—he’s Brad Pitt, for God’s sake—but there’s a sense that he’s playing a version of himself playing a racing driver, a meta-exercise that feels more suited to a Vanity Fair profile than a feature film. Compare this to Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bhrul's turns as James Hunt and Niki Lauda in "Rush" (2013) or more recently, Christian Bale and Matt Damon in "Ford v Ferrari" (2019), where the former’s Ken Miles was a spiky, obsessive genius and the latter’s Carroll Shelby a laconic schemer, both imbued with a specificity that made you believe they lived for the smell of petrol and the roar of engines. Indeed, with both these films being biopics, it certainly makes you wonder if the racing movie itself is a genre best rooted in some form of real-life drama.

In "F1", Pitt’s Sonny Hayes feels like he’s been airbrushed into existence, a character so smooth he might as well be sponsored by L’Oréal. The supporting cast fares little better. Idris, as the rookie Joshua Pearce, brings energy but is saddled with dialogue that sounds like it was generated by an AI trained on motivational posters. Javier Bardem, as the team principal, chews the scenery with gusto, but his character is less a person than a collection of exasperated gestures and Latin aphorisms. In contrast, "Rush" and "Ford v Ferrari" gave us characters who stepped out of a real garage, their rivalries and friendships forged in the heat of actual stakes. "F1"s characters, by comparison, feel like they’ve been designed by a marketing team to sell action figures.

And then there’s the matter of authenticity, or the lack thereof. Steve McQueen’s "Le Mans" was a film so obsessed with the reality of racing that it barely bothered with a plot, trusting that the sport’s raw danger and beauty would carry the day. McQueen, who did much of his own driving, imbued the film with a sense of lived-in grit, a quality that "F1" can only mimic through its glossy veneer. Where "Le Mans" felt like a dispatch from the edge of human endurance, "F1" feels like a theme-park ride, thrilling but safe, engineered to make you cheer without ever making you think. The film’s reliance on CGI to augment its racing sequences, while technically impressive, lacks the visceral immediacy of McQueen’s practical effects, where every crash felt like a punch to the gut. 

None of this is to say that "F1" is a failure. Far from it. It’s a film that knows exactly what it is—a summer blockbuster designed to sell popcorn and Red Bull merch—and it executes that mission with a slickness that borders on admirable. If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to ignore the plot’s creaking machinery and the acting’s occasional whiff of self-awareness, you’re left with a film that’s as exhilarating as a qualifying lap at Spa. 

It’s just a pity that, like so many Hollywood ventures, it feels compelled to drape itself in a narrative that’s as predictable as a safety car deployment. In the end, "F1" is a glorious spectacle, a love letter to speed and style, but one can’t help wishing it had taken a few more risks, trusted its audience to keep up, and remembered that the best races are the ones where you don’t see the finish line coming.