Keir Starmer has said he is “fed up” with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin for actions that he says are helping drive up energy bills for people in Britain.
The prime minister made the remarks as he concluded a tour of Gulf states, explicitly blaming the US president for higher costs facing British consumers. The comments come amid continuing political debate over energy prices and the wider impact of international conflicts on household bills.
In a separate intervention, the defence secretary, John Healey, said some of the support provided by the UK to the US during the Iran war had been “invaluable”. He was speaking during a Q&A session at the London Defence Conference on Friday morning, where he was questioned about Donald Trump’s repeated anger on social media over the UK and other Nato allies not fully backing the US military effort.
Healey said the government would prefer its actions to speak for themselves. He pointed to UK basing permissions agreed with the US, saying they had been invaluable to American military operations during the current conflict. He also referred to RAF regiment personnel in northern Iraq, who he said had been taking down drones almost daily and helping to protect US forces and a joint base.
“If we focus on our actions rather than just simply the exchange of words and social media posts, then the fundamentals for me remain,” Healey said during the event.
The exchange is the latest sign of tensions around the political and military aftermath of the Iran war, and of the pressure on allies to demonstrate support in public as well as in practice. Trump has repeatedly used social media to criticise Nato partners, including the UK, for what he sees as insufficient backing.
Back in domestic politics, the Conservative party was also facing a bleak assessment in the source material, with a warning that the party could struggle to claim it remains a national force after what was described as a potential wipe-out in the May elections in Scotland and Wales. The same commentary suggested that if Reform UK were to win those elections, Starmer would face pressure to resign, and that calls for him to go would grow stronger.
The comments reflect the increasingly volatile political climate around the next set of elections, with parties positioning themselves around Labour’s prospects, the Conservatives’ standing, and Reform UK’s chances of gaining ground.
For Starmer, the immediate focus remains on the link between international instability and the cost of living at home. His criticism of Trump and Putin puts the energy price issue squarely into the centre of the political conversation, as the government attempts to frame both foreign policy and domestic bills as connected challenges.
