The Duran Podcast - Starmer & Merz, unpopular and they don't care

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Starmer & Merz, unpopular and they don't care

All right, Alexander, let's revisit the topic of the UK and the UK economy as well as the situation with Prime Minister Stommer. Where are we with the UK and with Kier Stomber in his position as Prime Minister? Well, let's just quickly talk about the economy. We did a recent program about the budget, the British government's budget. originally in the days after it was published, it was hailed as a success for the government. I knew it wouldn't last. It didn't last. Already people are becoming increasingly critical about it. They're saying that the budget has made the overall situation in the economy worse

for all the reasons that we said in our program, that it's raising taxes to plug holes in the budget, holes which the government itself is creating through all the various policies that it's undertaking, including the one of continuing to support Ukraine and to support the war. So the economy continues to spiral down. And I think I mentioned in an earlier program, I was on a railway trip to Scotland and the way in which it was an absolute nightmare. and it demonstrated the essential collapse of the infrastructure collapse across Britain that you now see. And I'll say a bit more about that in a moment. So anyway, that's the overall bigger economic picture.

Now, over the last couple of days, I had to travel out of London again. I went to Oxford, to be precise, because I had an urgent need to. but it meant that this time I was driving and I was driving through a lot, in fact, quite a large section of the English countryside around Oxford. And one thing I noticed immediately is that in every single village I drove through, you saw everywhere now English flags, the St. George's flag is appearing. It's something which I noticed before when I traveled out of London in the summer to go to the West country. But it is now on a much bigger scale than was the case then in every village.

And you would see this, the St George's flag. You would see this at crossroads. Again, the flag was being put up at crossroads, on motorways, on small roads. It's everywhere. And clearly it's being put up by local people. I mean, this is far too big a campaign to have been just done by a few activists operating on the instructions of someone or other.

And these flags are staying up. In other words, the local people in these villages support them being there. I'm going to say villages, small towns too. And that brings home something, which is that there's politics now in London. There's the politics of the political class. So if we're talking about Kirstama, there's more intrigues. There's stories that the person who wants to replace him, West Streeting, has had through intermediaries discussions with Angela Rainer.

Remember her? She was the deputy leader of the Labour Party who was ousted and that he's apparently asked to back him in a leadership bid against Stama and in return he'll give her a place in the cabinet and might even make a deputy leader again. So you get all of this talk of intrigues going on in London. And there's been a book which has been a very interesting book about the media operation that Stama and his officials conducted before the election. and how they went against all kinds of independent media outlets, both in Britain and incredibly in the United States as well. So you get all of that, you get the intrigues, you get the infighting, the elite infighting. That is going on in London. But they're completely losing touch with real feelings and sentiment outside London.

It's a class, a political class. that's turning in on itself, but the people outside London don't care. The fact that they're putting up these flags, it signals two things. Firstly, they are staking out territory, and that is very much how it feels like. They say, this is our village, our town, it's part of England, it's part of Britain, we are, that's what we are, that's what we want to be. But more important, well, more immediately, politically important, it's also a message to the political class in London.

We know what you think of us and we don't care. We have lost all interest and contact with you. it connects very strongly, this phenomenon that I saw, with that big protest that took place in London, was it two months ago, when people were expecting, you know, Tommy Robinson's, you know, March of the Kingdoms that, you know, about 5,000 people would turn up and hundreds of thousands of people turned up instead. And I got exactly the same feeling moving around, as I said, the countryside north of London, that there is a massive sea change taking place. Outside London, people are basically forgetting and putting the political class and all of its intrigues behind them. They're now looking elsewhere. They're looking at themselves. And no doubt they're going to start looking more closely at other political forces that are closer to representing them.

The people are right. I mean, to take this position, right? Absolutely. They're right. To say this is our village. This is our town, our city, our friends, our community. Yes. And London and Stammer, the establishment.

You guys don't care about us. so why should we care about you? Exactly. I mean, they're 100% correct in what they're doing. What political party, what politicians can address this, the needs of the people? Yes. Can I just, before we say, a venture to that, just say that in England, in Britain, putting up flags like this is an extraordinary and unprecedented thing.

I mean, in the United States, for example, you go everywhere, you find people put up flags, the American flag. I mean, it's very common. In France, too. In Britain, it is not. This is new. It is an act of assertion and assertiveness that I've never seen in my life before. So that's one thing I wanted to say. Now, what political force represents these people?

Well, I don't know that anyone does. The political force that is most likely to attract their support at the moment is reform. And there are many, many people in reform who undoubtedly do share their views and, you know, that there is a certain community of ideas between reform, the party and the movement, and these people who are putting up these flags in the way that they are. But Farage himself is now becoming, I mean, his message, as he gets closer to power, is becoming increasingly incoherent. He's, I mean, he started out as a Thatcherite in economics.

He's now going towards a much more left-wing policy. on economics, that's probably not unpopular, actually. He's sticking very much to his position on migration, which is, by the way, absolutely what these people in the countryside are saying and what they're saying by putting up these flags. So on that, he's still in touch with them. But on other things, maybe he's drifting away, because one of the other things he's done is he's appointed as a foreign policy advisor,

his chief foreign policy advisor, a person called Mendoza. I've come across him before, by the way. He is an arch neocon, a member of the Henry Jackson Society, a fierce opponent of Putin, of Russia, a supporter of Ukraine and a project Ukraine, of the whole thing. So you can see that Farage is started to take steps, which I think are, out of tune with the sentiments of his base to the extent that the people in these villages who are putting up these flags still are his base. They will vote for him. They will probably vote for him in huge numbers come the election, the next election, whenever it is that that happens.

Because at the moment, he still represents the alternative, but I don't think he understands himself. the power of the forces that are now developing and evolving. And I think that the current ferrage, if he continues in this way, as Prime Minister, will quickly disappoint them and could quickly find that they will move on and start supporting someone else or some other force, which is inevitably going to appear. Yeah, that's the problem with all collective West leaders, is that they don't address any of the domestic issues. Even if as they're campaigning, they talk about the domestic issues and how focusing on the country is the number one priority. But once they get into office, they get sucked into all of the foreign policy intrigues.

Yes. Because that's where the money is at. Yes. That's where the unaudited, untraceable, big money is at, and they all get sucked into it. And if Farage gets sucked into all of the foreign policy and Project Ukraine and all of that stuff, well, then his prime ministership is cooked. It's over. Absolutely.

Right? Because you can't serve two masters. No, you cannot. That's the problem. You cannot. And Mertz has his problem, Imakron has his problem. And Stammer obviously has his problem. That's why their approval ratings.

Alexander are at like 10%. Merz's approval rating is the lowest in history now, 23%. Yes. I mean, the mood in England is becoming increasingly sovereignist and nationalist. If Farage is in tune with that, then he's politically strong. If he goes with the donor class, which is, by the way, money, exactly what you said. then he will quickly fall out of alignment with them. Merz, let's shift gears.

Mertz, terrible approval rating. Is he any different than Stommer? No, he's not different than Stommer. He's exactly the same. In fact, his approval rating is almost identical to Stombs. It's really quite interesting. I think Macron is the worst of the bunch. Macon is the worst of the bunch.

Exactly. But they're all going down in terms of support. And the interesting thing will be in Germany how the CDU responds to this, because the CDU remains a party which does still have connections with various sections of German society, the business community, for example. I mean, by that mostly, by the way, the small business community. I mean, the so-called Mitall-Stand, those people basically always. looked at the CDU to look after them. And they always were the people who were the core of the CDU, you know, across Germany. It was they who provided the jobs, who were there, who were working with the local banks, the Volksbanker, and all of those kind of things. And they must be looking

at maths and they must be asking to themselves, how is... this man, our Chancellor. I would not be surprised if at some point over the next couple of months, we start to see a serious challenge to him come from within the CDU. If it does not come from the CDU, then I think that we will probably see these people whom I'm talking about. I would not be surprised if we see a massive swing by them behind the IFDA, at which point the CDU's popularity with collapse. And I will say this, I think the IFDA, Germany having a different political culture, I think the IFDA is more likely to continue to remain in contact with these, with its new base, than maybe reform will in Britain.

Because here, what I've referred to in the past as the provincialism of German politics might actually work out, work in the end as an advantage in the sense that the IFDA would not look to the donor class or to the big global financial capital, which by the way supports mouths. in the way that perhaps Farage is tempted to do in Britain. So I have to say, I think Alice Vidal at the moment looks more impressive altogether anyway, and she would probably be an IFTA chancellor. And I could see the connections coming together in Germany more quickly and more effectively than they do in Britain at the present time.

They just need to get rid of Mertz. They need to get rid of that. That's the prize. And what coalition would the IFDA have? That's the other question mark. Well, there's a good question. Again, I mean, if the IFTA breaks through, if it emerges as the biggest party in Germany, one might start to see movement by people in the CDU towards it.

And assuming that there are enough people from the CDU, it could perhaps, former coalition with them. I would not be surprised myself is the CDU fractures. I've had some dealings with the CDU in the past and it would not at all surprise me if that was what happened. Now, the other thing, of course, the IFD needs to worry about is the possibility of it being banned and the SPD met his coalition partner now it seems to meet that its policy

its entire policy is to try to get the IFD band and the president of Germany Steinmeyer who is from the SPD I mean he's I think made it

perfectly clear that he wants to see the SPD band as well so to the extent that the SPD has a policy and a purpose anymore, it is basically to ban the IF debt. And I think there is still obstacles to that and resistance to it. But one should not discount the possibility at all that it might happen. All right. We will end the video there, the durand.com. We are on X-Rumble telegram. And also on Substack, so check us out on Substack and go to the Duran Shop pick up some merch.

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