Fleeing icy Britannia: Keir’s bleak outlook will boost overseas business, warns MAGGIE PAGANO

My phone has not stopped ringing since Sir Keir Starmer delivered his misery speech in the Rose Garden of Number 10, setting out what must be the bleakest view of this country ever delivered by a victorious Prime Minister.

They received calls from business owners of all shapes and sizes, as well as friends and family. They all wanted to ask the same question: why does Starmer hate his country so much?

And why are you not proud of the millions of so-called “workers” you talk so much about who get up every day with the energy to work hard?

Like them, I am puzzled by the reference to a “social black hole”, his description of Britain as a “deeply unhealthy society” that has been “infected by populism” and “weakened by a decade of division and decay, infected by a spiral of populism that feeds on cycles of failure”.

Seriously? This is not the country most of us know.

Even Sharon Graham, leader of the Unite trade union, tweeted that “this bleak vision of Britain is not what we need right now”, adding that Labour should not pit pensioners against workers. And she is absolutely right.

Three of the most disturbing calls came from a biotech CEO, a former London Stock Exchange director and serial investor, and a cardiologist working at a cutting-edge healthcare startup.

All three are considering leaving the country. They say Labour’s threats to raise “painful” taxes on the middle classes are the last straw.

They are already being hit hard. Does the Prime Minister not know that those with the “broadest shoulders” are already bearing the brunt of the fiscal burden?

The share of income tax paid by the richest 1% of taxpayers rose from 11% in the late 1970s to 29% last year, while the top 10% of taxpayers paid 60.3% of income tax in the last tax year, up from a third in the 1970s. However, scepticism about the UK is not just about higher taxes.

In fact, they don’t mind paying more taxes. They want to contribute.

What they do worry about is that these taxes are not providing the quality of services they expect for “workers” – such as child care – which must be supplemented by net income.

However, they are not taking it lightly and are already considering moving their work elsewhere. Spain, Italy and Turkey are the favourites.

How terrible is this. None of these business leaders is your typical millionaire CEO making millions. All three have given up consulting careers or similar jobs where they could earn higher and more secure salaries.

But instead they have chosen to create transformative technologies that will improve the lives of millions of people.

What is particularly worrying is that these are the businessmen and women, along with angel investors, who are the few who risk their own capital – sometimes through sweat equity or remortgaging their homes – to build the next generation of wealth and new jobs.

Why, they ask, should they pay 45 percent on any capital gains they make when they have to bear 100 percent of the risk if the investment fails? Good question.

Curiously, of all the calls I received, the most anxious came from a fervent Starmerite.

As head of the National Health Service, he asked whether he should retire now, before tax changes come in. Like so many public sector employees, he is entitled to a fabulous lump sum on retirement, as well as a pension most of us can only dream of.

There is talk of greed triumphing over principle, but fear spreads quickly, even faster when one is super-rich.

Most of the big money left before the Labour victory: around 9,500 millionaires have already left this year, second only to China. This figure is more than double the 4,200 who left the country last year.

Should we be worried about an exodus?

Yes, we should. This shows that all is not well in the spirit of a nation. Even more worrying would be a brain drain of our brightest and most talented workers, such as we saw during the 1970s.

However cheesy Tony Blair’s Cool Britannia may have been, at least the former Labour leader was an optimist.

What Starmer has decided to present to us now is a frozen Britannia, with icy tentacles. And he can’t blame it on climate change either.