‘Just nuts’: Keir Starmer under fire for ‘wasting taxpayers’ money’

I'll tell you what, it's amazing how Donald Trump can get people to bow before him. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has apologised to the US President for an anti-tariff advertisement that aired in Ontario. So the commercial used a series of clips from former President Ronald Reagan's 1987 national radio address in which he argued that tariffs would hurt America's economy. Here's a little look at the ad. When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker. Well it backfired spectacularly because Trump then suspended all trade talks with Canada and said he would impose an additional 10% tariff on Canadian imports. So Carney stepped in to apologise and said that he'd advised against the ad going to air. Here's what Trump said in response. I have a very good relationship, I like him a lot, but you know what they did was wrong. He was very nicely apologised for what they did with the commercial, because it was a false commercial, you know, it was the exact opposite. Ronald Reagan loved tariffs and they tried to make it look the other way. And he did apologise and I appreciated it. There is no one like him. And it is hard to think of anyone else who can just throw a tantrum, Joe, and everyone goes, sorry, sorry, Mr Trump, sorry. It's amazing, like this is the thing with Trump, like this is what everyone was saying about, you know, he was going to blow up Aukus because of something that, you know, Albo might have said, you know, 10 years ago or whatever. Trump is an incredibly forgiving guy, like as long as you go and say, look, sorry about that, he's absolutely fine. He did the same thing even with Rudd after the meeting where he tore him a new one. He said, you know, he said, you know, all is forgiven if we're to believe the report. So I'm not surprised. It wasn't actually Mark Carney's call. No, it wasn't a federal. Why is anybody apologising about anything here? And why is nobody asking why Trump would demand an apology over something which was simply quotes from Ronald Reagan? I mean, this is this is the strange thing to make. First of all, Reagan said those quotes. Second of all, they're right. Third of all, they went to, you know, it was just an ad. Like, what the hell? The apology. I think Carney sort of knew they were in trouble because of the reaction. But what I just enjoy and I, you know, the irony that the people that are making these ads that are anti-Trump, these are the same people that were against Reaganomics, that were against Thatcher, that are completely anti-neoliberal. You know, it's just these people, if they didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards at all. That is totally not the point. The villain is actually Doug Ford, who is the Premier of Ontario. He made the ad. He showed it to Carney. Carney said, don't do it because it was clearly having a jab at Trump. And he is a state premier. It was a provincial premier. It's not his job to tackle federal issues, trade issues, that kind of thing. He was just being nasty to Trump. And in any diplomatic circumstance, regardless of who's in the White House, having a go at the American president is a really silly, undiplomatic thing to do. First of all, he was not having a go at the American president. He was having a go at Trump tariffs. And that's what the ad is about. Like, shaking a fence at an ad like that looks really, really silly for Trump. It makes him look like an idiot. Funny thing is, he's the only bloke who seems to get away with that kind of behaviour. While we're overseas, how about this yarn in The Telegraph about British foreign aid? The UK's International Climate Finance Initiative is set to spend a staggering 11.6 billion pounds in foreign aid on behalf of the British taxpayer by the end of this financial year. So what is the money going towards? Well, 52 million pounds for a road through the Amazon jungle to a tiny village in Guyana. There are reportedly 1,400 people living along the route. And it will be used by 52,000 vehicles a year, which is the equivalent of five hours of traffic on the M25 highway in the UK. And other projects funded by this money include a push to stop ocean plastic pollution in landlocked African countries and the distribution of free condoms in the Congo to try to stop deforestation by slowing population growth. They seem like some creative ways of using this money to me. I think it's the Victorian government who are actually giving this advice to the United Because they are on par with each other with the volume of stupidity coming out. I mean, this is just nuts, nuts. Waste of money, taxpayers' money. It's why Keir Starmer will be gone before we know it. This is the ad that should be running around the world. You know, we need to show this is how taxpayer money gets wasted. This is the kind of stuff that you need to cut. And that should run in every single country. This is how the government's using your money. OK, now let's talk about bringing those taxes down. I thought it would be much worse, though. Using condoms to stop population growth? Well, yeah, well, that does potentially work. But for the purpose of stopping deforestation. Ocean de-plasticisation for landlocked countries. Landlocked countries? Yeah. They don't have a lot of oceanfront in there. I mean, what are they doing? Transporting it by helicopter? A road to nowhere in the middle of the Amazon jungle where the only... Where progress. Well, the people around it are the tribes that you're supposedly not allowed to contact without the permission of the government. Very quickly, Kel. I suspect this is what happens when you give money to countries that don't have a lot of money and expect them to do things not for nefarious... Who would have thought countries run by dodgy people do dodgy things? Who would have imagined that? And who would have imagined governments were not good at managing money? I have a friend who's a builder. He says he only goes for government contracts. It's like looking into a bucket of money. Exactly. I wish I'd get a few of them.