Keir Starmer's silence over slavery reparations shows a lost Labour

From Exodus to Isaiah and several points in between, the era in which these chapters were penned were of one opinion. The sins of the fathers should be visited on their offspring. (Even unto the third and fourth generations!)

Fast forward to Samoa, where the ­Caribbean reps in particular at the ­Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting are arguing loud and long for the UK Government to offer reparations for its major role in the transportation of slaves to the cotton, tobacco and coffee plantations.

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It seems the PM is not for turning on his refusal to accede to their demands, not even up for making an apology with no cash, but potential lawsuits attached. Leopards and heads of public prosecution services rarely change their spots.

You might possibly see why, now that some researchers have put the UK’s share of those miserable times at some £18 trillion. Or many times the UK’s ­annual spend on just about everything.

It seems to me that if the Archbishop of Canterbury – not to mention a ­previous ­Labour PM – can find that sorry is not the hardest word, the current incumbent should do likewise. The astronomical sums involved are something else again.

More logical might be a series of ­scholarships aimed at young folk from the area once scarred by the slave trade and a decent attempt to embed the history of that trade in education both here and there.

That there are very real present-day ­legacies of that period is not in any real doubt. There is a disproportionate number of type two diabetes sufferers in the black population and it would be difficult to ­argue that America doesn’t still suffer from widespread discriminatory practices.

It didn’t take the George Floyd ­murder, for instance, to flag up some very ­uns­avoury behaviour within the ranks of law ­enforcement officers. It’s still routine for black American fathers of sons to have “the conversation” which consists of how to ­behave if confronted or stopped by the police.

Back home, a fair expanse of ­Glaswegian real estate was built on the profits of ­plantations, and you’ll recall the stushie over the statue to Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, in Edinburgh when he was ­accused of having delayed abolition long enough for more than half a million Africans to be forcibly dispatched to the colonies.

Even Bute House in Edinburgh’s ­Charlotte Square, stately pad of our First Ministers, was once owned by two fellows whose inherited wealth came via Jamaica.

It also seems that at least eight of the chaps aloft pillars in Glasgow’s George Square have unsavoury connections to slavery, whilst street names like Jamaica, Virginia, Tobago, Glassford etc were so called thanks to some Glaswegians’ dash for unsavoury cash.

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And who could forget the sight of Lord Colston’s statue in Bristol ­being rolled down the road and dumped ­unceremoniously in the drink when ­campaigners pulled him down from his lofty perch?

The underlying conundrum is whether or not today’s generations should be liable for the mighty sins of those who went long before. Cities with lengthy links to ­slavery like Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow have all fessed up to a dodgy past and, in the case of Bristol, built a museum to ­acknowledge their civic part in the trade.

It’s no more than healthy to accept blame for those historical outrages; how to address them is rather more complex.

I nurture an uneasiness about overlaying today’s sensibilities on historical wrongdoing. When those biblical texts were written, they reflected a time when vengeance was rife and encouraged and, for that matter, when women’s natural bodily functions were deemed unclean.

I know that there are some people still prepared to argue that The Bible is the ­literal word of God rather than an ­interpretation thereof by self-appointed translators from the patriarchy.

Ditto those hardliners from Iran to ­Afghanistan who unilaterally decide what their prophet might demand of ­contemporary womanhood. Self-serving interpretation is no substitute for ­equality.

Bizarrely perhaps, I even harbour some sympathy for celebrities accused of misogynistic practices which were ­commonplace when they were young and the ground rules were very different. I’m not talking about the likes of Jimmy Savile who was clearly the worst kind of sexual predator, but men whom we all knew in our young days who would take casual liberties with female staff.

I note that a large number of women, listed as “Survivors for Kamala” who ­allege they have been molested to a lesser or greater extent have just taken out an ad featuring their pictures in The New York Times.

I wish them well, merely noting in ­passing that former president Trump’s more unsavoury pronouncements and ­behaviour would have long since sunk any other candidate. Trump appears to be constructed from weapons-grade Teflon.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir’s new model ­minders would not seem to have stopped him wandering into weekly elephant traps. I know it’s relatively trivial but could nobody have advised him that a black suit was hardly an appropriate ­costume for Samoa where even the King managed a safari suit and local jewellery?

Incidentally, I don’t know if the ­monarch’s speech is still routinely written by the Foreign Office on these occasions, but even Charles’s script seemed less out of touch than Starmer’s remarks.

By the end of the day, the Prime ­Minister was talking about reparation of the non-fiscal variety having first ­indicated that any such chat was strictly off the menu. Perhaps he should have been advised that he doesn’t get to choose the dishes on tour.

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He should also be advised that the ­lieges are totally scunnered by endless ­references to Tory-inspired black holes in the nation’s finances. It’s not that they don’t believe that the Tories left a mess – what’s new? – they just fondly ­imagined that a Labour administration might ­dangle the odd carrot after miserable years of Conservative stick.

Nobody expects the new Chancellor to be in the business of waving magic wands, but words matter. There surely has to be someone in Number 10 with the nous to remember that as well as the ubiquitous change, the other super-potent political word is hope. As in, folk hoped things would get better and can’t see much in the way of change thus far from what’s gone before.

Yes, I do know that the Tories endlessly blamed Labour for a financial crash which was America-led and global in nature. And gave scant credit for a Labour PM calling in enough international favours to keep the cash machines operational. But for most of today’s electorate, that’s old news.

Voters want what they’ve always ­wanted – decent wages, fair conditions, a warm, affordable home, and the promise that their kids will have it better than they did.

I see that Scottish Labour are on the hunt for candidates for the 2026 poll. ­Apparently all they need is an instinctive belief in Labour values and a passionate means of communicating them.

Already I spot a wee snag. To communicate Labour values, you have to discern what they are. Like “the vision thing” they still seem a bit vaguely described.

One of the reasons left-leaning ­independence supporters deserted the ­Labour cause was that they found it ­difficult to recognise the Labour Party compared with what they once stood for.

The other, of course, was that ­Labour didn’t just set their face against ­independence, but refused to ­countenance any democratic sampling of public ­opinion on the matter.

You don’t need to know that we’re a country not a county to understand ­democratic deficits.