Should Boris apologise to Keir Starmer or retract his comments? Star readers have their say

Through the course of the week there were numerous comments from MPs clarifying that Boris Johnson’s comments were an response to the Labour leaders attack on the capability of the leadership of the Conservatives, and the government. But there was still a considerable uproar from many outlets. It all came to a head when Sir Keir Starmer was mobbed by protesters who shouted abuse at the Labour leader. We asked our readers for their thoughts on whether the the Prime Minister should apologise or retract his comments, and here are a selection of their responses.

Nik Seth said, “According to the Tories, Kier Starmer was the leader of an organisation which failed in its job and so is fair game. Boris Johnson is the leader of a government which has found to be corrupt, bullying, responsible for tens of thousands of avoidable deaths, broken it's own laws and has had his and his ministers' lies corrected by government bodies countless times. If that's not a reason to resign, what is?”

Penelope Baddeley shared her take, saying “He should resign on many counts, not least his breaking of his own Covid policies. His despicable libel against Keir Starmer is a deliberately timed fabrication to deflect attention from his flagrant disregard of his own Covid lockdown rules.”

Penelope’s comment recieved a number of comments in support of her statement.

Richard How believes that “Yes, he should apologise as it wasn’t Starmers decision not to prosecute.” He also added a link to FullFact (an independent team of fact checkers, who share insight into various topics) for further context to support his take on the matter.

Andy Firth on the otherhand kept it short, sweet, “Yes he should and then resign.” As did Ian Smith, who kept it very much to the point “apologise and retract.”

Many others believe that the Prime Minister should not only apologise, he should resign.

Sarah Nuttall added “If it’s said by the PM then it must be true. Unfortunately most people will believe it as demonstrated on here. Blind belief offered by a PM who will never do the right and honourable thing and admit he is wrong. Therefore inciting an angry mindless mob who cannot accept any other point of view unless it fits their agenda. Has no one learned from the Capitol Hill riots ? It’s happening right in front of your eyes in this country too. The Trumpian effect.”

As is the case with everything, not everybody shared the same sentiment and there were a number of commentors who believe that the Prime Minister has nothing to apologise for and if anything Keir Starmer should be blamed for failings.

Brian Tomlinson replied saying, “No, he said what has been believed and spoken about for years by us the electorate, he and his champagne Charlie socialist friends who are not supporters of the working class and believe they can still pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.”

Lynne Siddons added, “False claim? Kier Starmer was head of CPS when allegations were made about Jimmy Saville, so unless he wasn’t informed of it at the time (which I would think unusual for such a high profile offender), it wouldn’t be a False Claim would it?”

Meanwhile, Lou Smith shared his views, “Don't really care tbh they all as bad as each other”, and Deedee Blinkho is adamant that the comments were merely a “distration.”

Finally, we received an incredibly thorough and in-depth reply from Kaz Gipson, who had the following to say.

“Those saying it's true have some free education. The CPS is the agency in charge of deciding prosecutions for the CJS in England and Wales (https://www.cps.gov.uk/about-cps).

Starmer was the head of this agency from 2008 - 2013. The case against Saville in 2009 as all cases of CSA/CSE are was dealt with by Surrey Police and the CPS, the case was assigned a reviewing lawyer and subjected to the same tests all criminal cases put before the CPS are. The first of these being the evidence test, where the evidence was found but the CPS reviewing lawyer to not meet the evidence threshold AND the complaining witness REFUSED to testify, under LAW Saville could not be prosecuted (https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/code-crown-prosecutors).

Consequently, following Saville's death in 2013 Starmer ordered Alison Levitt QC to fully investigate the case following more allegations. The report found serious failings in both the way the police and the CPS reviewing leader handled the case (if you haven't read and I am assuming you haven't you should, it's an interesting read)

(https://bit.ly/34u7QgO) and (https://bit.ly/3rFy74s). Starmer has done much in his career to fight violence against women and girls (I also recommend his Mishcon lecture on the topic)

Sincerely,

A Criminology student who has not only read the Levitt report in full but also written a 5000 word assignment on the topic. Please get your facts right then comment.

Well… that was quite the discussion and, it was interesting to see people’s insight into the topic. It is important to note that although the final comment was a long one, it was so thorough and detailed that it had ended up receiving a number of approvals of agreement from other readers, who supported the insight shared by Kaz. Thanks for that.

Once again, thank you for your thoughts and your comments.