Keir Starmer’s inability to answer this question by himself tells us all we need to know

After the Supreme Court ruled on April 16th about the legal definition of a woman, Prime Minister Keir Starmer stayed quiet. For almost a whole week, he didn’t say a word about it. Then, during an interview on ITN, he was asked whether a trans woman is considered a woman. His answer was short and clear: “A woman is an adult female.”

Starmer said he welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision because it gave “real clarity” in an area where he felt clarity was needed. But this raises a bigger question — did we really need such a ruling to tell us something so basic? How have things gotten to a point where the Prime Minister of Britain can say something so simple and not feel any shame or pressure to resign, as some people argue he should?

Keir Starmer now sits in the same position once held by great historical figures like Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher. Looking at how he acts today gives a sense of how much trouble the British government is in. Starmer is quick to take part in public displays like kneeling for causes, dancing at Pride parades, and selling off parts of Britain’s national assets, all while giving off an air of moral superiority, as if he’s always doing the right thing.

He seems eager to jump on every new political trend, even when those trends are not popular with the general public. And he does it with a kind of careless attitude, knowing that powerful institutions, activist groups, and a network of government-funded organizations will always support him no matter what he does.

One big reason for this strange situation is the way government spending has exploded while public service productivity has sharply fallen. Between 1997 and 2024, government-run services have become less and less effective. From 2019 to 2025 alone, productivity in the public sector dropped by about 8.4%. That’s a huge and worrying fall.

The Institute for Government explained that even though the government kept throwing more money at public services, especially healthcare, there wasn’t much real improvement to match that spending. In other words, taxpayers are giving the government more money every year but getting worse services in return.

Meanwhile, private businesses — companies that aren’t run by the government — have been doing the opposite. They have grown and become much more efficient, about three times faster than the government sector. So while businesses have learned to do more with less, the government seems to do less with more.

This isn’t just a mistake or bad management. It’s because the government has become more ideological. Instead of focusing on providing good services for people, it seems more interested in reshaping society — changing how people live, what they believe, even how they eat and think.

One example of this is the government’s recent push to study public attitudes towards ultra-processed foods. At first, it sounds innocent. But the study is being run by UK Research and Innovation, a massive government-backed organization that spends £10 billion a year. It’s joined by different government departments, activist charities, campaign groups, and a few industry “stakeholders” — but noticeably, the actual food industry is hardly involved.

Groups like the activist charity Bite Back are heavily involved, but most real food producers are not. This means the survey results are likely already decided — they’re meant to guide public opinion, not to reflect it. It’s clear that the outcome will probably be more government restrictions on food, new laws, and higher costs for ordinary people.

The government is already creating a new Food Strategy Board and launching a National Food Survey, all funded by taxpayers. These groups will likely push for strict new rules that will affect things like Christmas food advertising and traditional British foods. It’s a heavy-handed approach that uses a small problem to justify big government control.

This is just another example of how government-funded groups, activist charities, and unelected organizations are influencing what laws get made, often in ways that hurt British businesses and make life more expensive for ordinary people.

Public trust in these groups has been falling for years. In the late 1990s, NGOs — non-governmental organizations — were seen as some of the most trustworthy institutions in the world. But now, according to surveys like the Edelman Trust Barometer, businesses are trusted more than NGOs, because businesses actually deliver real results, while many activist groups seem more interested in politics.

Since the COVID pandemic, trust in government and the media has dropped sharply. But the biggest fall has been in trust toward NGOs, which more and more people now see as an unofficial arm of the government — powerful, unelected, and out of control. Most voters have no idea how much these activist groups influence government decisions, but they can feel it.

Take the recent example of the new rules banning adverts for food high in fat, sugar, and salt. Groups like Action on Salt and Sugar pushed for these rules, which ban “less healthy” food adverts before 9pm on TV and online. Although the goal is to reduce obesity, the reality is that these rules will hurt small and medium-sized businesses the most, especially those that rely on cheap advertising to compete with giant brands. In the end, consumers will see less competition, higher prices, and fewer choices.

The system behind all this is huge. There are more than 300 government-backed quangos, and thousands of charities that are partly or fully funded by taxpayers. Together, they employ over 400,000 people — that’s more than four times the number of people in Britain’s armed forces.

These organizations work constantly, day and night, to push their agendas without facing voters. It’s a system built to bypass democracy. The way it works is predictable: studies and surveys are created with pre-decided results, the media reports them with panic and urgency, and politicians feel forced to pass new laws they barely understand. All of this is paid for by taxpayers.

The public pays for the government departments, the activist groups, the biased studies, the media campaigns, and the politicians who pass the new laws. Maybe it’s time for elected officials to ask whether this system is really helping the country or just serving the interests of a few loud activist groups.

As for Starmer, he knows he doesn’t have to worry about any of this. He knows he can say or do almost anything without paying a political price. Why? Because he has the full backing of a £350 billion-a-year taxpayer-funded network that props him up. He has the system on his side. And he has politicians like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and others to thank for creating this untouchable system.

Britain today is being run by leaders who are blind to the real needs of the people — and everything is being managed for the benefit of those behind the scenes who still see the bigger picture and pull the strings.