Starmer fancies himself a leader among leaders but his tough talk on defence is just expensive bluster | Simon Jenkins

"Each night we wonder where we are. We sit in comfort watching death and destruction fall on thousands in Gaza and Ukraine. Each night we see buildings exploding, people screaming and children starving. Statesmen stand around and deplore. There is anxious talk of what next another 9/11 perhaps, or a Cuba 1962? Or is it, as some say, a 1939 or 1914 moment?"

"As for the one man with notional power over the world, Donald Trump, his pledge of an end to wars has proved futile and a bonanza for defence industries everywhere. Whenever someone cries that something must be done, I always ask by whom? Day after day, Britain's Keir Starmer when he isn't battling domestic crises and scandals rises in the Commons to announce that he is working towards a ceasefire."

"In 1901, as Europe's nations flexed their muscles amid rising tensions, the young Churchill pleaded for caution in such rhetoric. The wars of tomorrow, he said, would no longer be tidy battles between soldiers. Whipped by public opinion, they would be vindictive. The wars of peoples, he said, will be more terrible than those of kings. And that was before the coming of aerial bombardment."

Nightly exposure to violence in Gaza and Ukraine confronts comfortable viewers with exploding buildings, screaming people and starving children. Political leaders respond with lament and anxious speculation about wider catastrophe, invoking historical analogies. Promises by prominent figures to end wars have failed and have become a bonanza for defence industries, raising the practical question of who can act. The British opposition leader publicly vows to work toward a ceasefire but is portrayed as offering rhetoric rather than effective action. A legacy of empire shapes expectations of running commentary in Britain. Historical warnings framed future wars as vindictive popular conflicts intensified by aerial bombardment. The Gaza conflict saw a Hamas atrocity met by a disproportionate Israeli response supplied largely by the United States.

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