Overview
- New tallies show Keir Starmer has spent about one-sixth of his premiership abroad after 37 trips covering 44 countries.
- He has averaged more than 300 miles of overseas travel per day in his first 17 months compared with Tony Blair’s 164 miles per day in the same period.
- Recent long-haul stops included Brazil for the Cop climate conference, Samoa for the Commonwealth meeting, and a Mumbai trade mission that logged 9,000 miles in 48 hours.
- Ministers and government sources have urged him to delegate more visits to Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, with some colleagues dubbing him “never-here Keir.”
- Polling reported by More in Common finds over a third of Britons think he is abroad too much, with critics linking the schedule to weak personal and party ratings as a G20 trip to South Africa approaches.