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Britain could be left with a ‘zombie government’ as Keir Starmer clings to power amid mounting crises
Apr 25, 2026
Britain could be left shouldered with a “zombie government” as Keir Starmer battles to stay in power while the nation is mired in multiple crises.Speaking to GB News, former No10 Communications Director Jonathan Haslam predicted Labour would be paralysed with indecision on who should replace the embattled Prime Minister.
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0:00
Jonathan, you've been there. You've been a director of communications
0:04
How is the communications around this scandal looking to you at the moment? It's pretty rough around the edges and it's rough in the centre, Dawn
0:12
Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon. I can only say as a former director of communications
0:17
I'm very glad I'm not the current director of communications. It's a nightmare for anybody to deal with, including Keir Starmer
0:24
But then he is the author of his own downfall. So sympathy is being played out on a very small violin, I think, throughout most of the country
0:33
And we have to know actually now, is he going to be able to do something which would stabilise matters for the country, not for him
0:42
I think that this is important. And you've already mentioned it, but he is facing terrible Tuesday
0:48
Not only do we have Morgan McSweeney giving evidence, but we also have Sir Philip Barton
0:54
who was the Permanent Secretary of Foreign Office prior to Sir Ollie Robbins. And it was he who
1:01
said that he had a fair amount to do with Downing Street's private office when a lot of pressure was
1:07
applied and that was passed to Ollie Robbins. In the Commons, the Prime Minister denied that
1:12
pressure had been applied and therefore there is a mood within Parliament to say should he face a
1:18
sleazy inquiry over misleading the House. So that just compounds things. And then we have this swirl
1:23
around him as a leader. Is he actually the man to take the country forward? And there the jury is
1:29
out. And I suspect, Dawn, that we might find ourselves facing a bit of a zombie government
1:34
for the next 10, 12 months even, because nobody in the Labour Party could agree on who might be
1:40
best placed to take on that particular job And Sir Stierkama as I called him rather than maybe he trying to achieve that aim but I don think he necessarily going to get there So we going to be faced as a country looking at
1:56
all of the issues of the Iran war, the effect it's having on prices
2:02
the cost of living issues that we have, our energy prices, all of that
2:06
In a sense, it's so difficult to deal with when you have all of this fuss and bother going around
2:11
And people may say, well, it's a Westminster bubble story. The trouble is, the people involved in making these decisions
2:17
are in Westminster. Yeah, and the thing is, Jonathan, it does affect..
2:22
I keep coming back to this, it's like, Westminster bubble, no-one really cares, but we should care
2:26
because the whole lack of judgement around Peter Mandelson, you know, the fact that he had close ties to Russia
2:31
close ties to China, not to mention the whole Jeffrey Epstein affair
2:35
I mean, you have to question the judgement being exhibited by a Prime Minister
2:39
who thinks he would be a good appointment. At the very least, it could be a national security risk
2:44
we're talking about it. So it should be important to all of us. It is very important to all of us
2:49
and we all need to wake up and then think very long and hard about what has happened to politics
2:54
in the last five to ten years. We can talk about Brexit, of course, but let's just look at those
2:59
two standards, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Both because of their actions have
3:05
lost support on both wings, the left and the right of their own parties, because every party is
3:10
to borrow that old cliche a broad church and that has allowed other parties the greens to
3:18
take take sway and Nigel Farage and reform obviously from a right part of the wing
3:24
has gained ground and the liberal democrats who seem to be apart from one or two lunatic out
3:31
fringes probably the most stable of the lot and I think we should all be very very careful
3:36
careful about this, my own views about the Greens and some of the things they're doing
3:40
just fill me with a degree of horror, frankly, Dawn
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