The prime minister marked the 1,000th day of the war in Ukraine tending to global affairs at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Over the two days of our trip to Brazil, the PM wanted to talk about “doubling down” on support for Ukraine, opening a “serious and pragmatic” dialogue with President Xi Jinping of China and the re-starting of stalled trade talks with India.
All the while, back home his domestic agenda is in trouble.
Politics Live: Starmer hits back at Clarkson’s claim at huge farm tax protest
Take growth figures: In the first three months of his premiership growth has slowed sharply, while the economy was contracting in September. “They’re not good enough and I want them to improve,” he told me bluntly when I interviewed him at the G20 summit.
But more arresting is the real-life backlash against the decisions made by the prime minister and his chancellor in the October budget.
As the PM convened for the closing family photo in the sunny climes of Rio, back home 13,000 farmers and protesters descended on Westminster to make their anger over changes to inheritance tax heard.
This is one bit of the budget his opponents believed would unravel – see Ruth Davidson on our Electoral Dysfunction Budget pod special – and now farmers are parking their tractors on Starmer’s lawn.
Then there is the decision to lift employers’ national insurance.
Retailers are warning that 1,000s of jobs will have to go, and Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England agrees.
And his early decision to means test the winter fuel allowance means an extra 100,000 pensioners could be in poverty by 2027, according to the government’s own impact assessment.
The prime minister bunches them all as the “tough decisions” he’s having to take to “stabilise” the economy and improve public services.
But his issue – and I have written and…
