‘Never Here’ Keir’s trip to China is not the cause of his problems

It seemed a long way to go just to take Iain Duncan Smith’s proudest boast away from him. Keir Starmer flew thousands of miles to the court of Xi Jinping to boast about a cut in China’s tariff on Scottish whisky and the unbanning of the Conservatives’ former leader.

Duncan Smith and seven other British parliamentarians were sanctioned by the Chinese government five years ago for protesting against the mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. Their punishment was to be banned from entering China, and Chinese citizens and institutions were prohibited from doing business with them.

They wore China’s disapproval with pride, and were not grateful to the prime minister for getting it lifted. In a joint statement, the group said they “take this opportunity to express our ongoing solidarity with the Uyghur people, whose cause we will not drop”.

They could not stop Starmer claiming credit for their unbanning: “That’s something that couldn’t have happened if we weren’t here, having the leader-to-leader exchange.” But the prime minister seemed almost as unexcited as “Quiet Man” Duncan Smith about this triumph of personal diplomacy.

That is because Starmer has been desperate to make this trip all about the cost of living in Britain. The only reason he reluctantly leaves the country, he implied, is that he wants to take money off your gas bill and make things cheaper in Britain’s shops.

Even the trade mission element of the trip, boosting British exports and creating British jobs, seemed to be secondary to the “pound in your pocket” message. Starmer told the BBC: “Whenever I am on an international trip I keep firmly in mind that the single most important issue for your viewers back at home is the cost of living, so we are delivering that for people at home.”

In his conversation with Xi he mentioned Jimmy Lai, the detained British-Hong Kong advocate of democracy, but he doesn’t want journalists to go on about him. Nor does he want us to dwell on the gifts he received: a Labubu doll for his children, who are in their mid teens; a copper statue of a horse from President Xi, because it is the year of the horse; and a flute from the Chinese premiers, because Starmer was a flautist in his youth.

One of the few things that seemed on message was Greg Jackson, the chief executive of Octopus Energy, and one of the delegation of business leaders accompanying the prime minister, talking about Chinese solar and wind power and battery technology: “There’s a huge opportunity for Britain to succeed as we build the solutions that use these products to cut the cost of electricity.”

That raises the awkward question of whether green energy, designed to wean Britain off dependence on foreign oil and gas, will simply make us dependent on foreign solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.

But that is not why Starmer’s attempt to make his trips about the cost of living at home is doomed to failure. The real reason the “Never Here Keir” label has stuck is that people are dissatisfied with his record at home. He is getting it in the neck for always being abroad because he is failing to deliver the goods when he is at home.

Some voters might see a connection between the two, and think that if only he spent more time in the country the cost of living would come down, the NHS would be fixed and the boats stopped.

He fed that perception himself when he said last year that he hadn’t realised the £5bn-a-year disability cuts were unacceptable because he had been “heavily focused on what was happening with Nato and the Middle East”. He had been in the Hague for a two-day Nato summit, and when he returned, “my full attention really bore down on this”, he said. “At that point, we were able to move relatively quickly.”

He was rightly mocked for a “dog ate my homework” excuse. It was not being abroad that was the problem – it was failing to realise many weeks earlier that Labour MPs would not vote for what Rachel Reeves wanted.

If he were making the right decisions on domestic policy, and people felt that the country was moving in the right direction, Kemi Badenoch would be laughed at for suggesting that it is wrong for the prime minister to visit China. Public opinion tends to favour engagement with foreign leaders, even if it disapproves of them. Starmer gets some credit for his pragmatic handling of Donald Trump, and even more credit for helping to rally the coalition of the willing in support of Ukraine.

If things were going well at home, most people wouldn’t think twice about a prime minister doing his job, negotiating trade deals and leading export missions, promoting the national interest – however marginal and long-term some of the gains might be.

Those complaining that Starmer spends too much time abroad, or that he doesn’t achieve much while he is there – “Is That It?” was the Daily Mail’s front-page headline on Friday – are really saying that he is no good at home.

They don’t really want him to spend more time in the country, they want him to make better decisions – or to give way to someone else who can.