Keir Starmer Needs a More Modern Approach to Elon Musk’s Attacks

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is making the running in UK politics and the establishment can't stop him.

To understand Musk’s impact, let’s look back to a politician of a different era: Enoch Powell, essentially the grandfather of all right-wing British populists. In 1968, the Tory politician, one of the most accomplished House of Commons orators of his day, tried to seize his party leadership by making a series of inflammatory speeches about non-white immigration. He was ostracized by the political class, became a hate figure on television and was condemned by mainstream newspaper commentators — although, alarmed by the popularity of his message, both parties hit the brakes hard on migration. Powell acknowledged that “for a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea.”