During the campaign I thought the celebrity appearances were a really bad move... making the Democrats look completely out of touch when average Americans have rising living costs.

Yeah something like that probably would be sufficient. But maybe Starmer's statement was more flattering because he really wants the US-UK relationship to work. Europe perhaps doesn't need to be so flattering, especially since Europe is a much bigger bloc, so it can throw its own weight around a bit more (e.g. if the EU introduced tariffs on US goods it would presumably hurt the US more, compared to if Britain did the same thing).

Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.

Realistically perhaps Britain just needs partners, with the US of course being a major partner (Five Eyes for example).

If we weren't so closely tied to the US then maybe Starmer could be making a statement similar to that of Macron and Scholz today:

Germany, France vow close cooperation after US election... "We will work in this new context for a more united, stronger, more sovereign Europe..."

Trump holds grudges so maybe he would insist on only meeting Starmer and not Lammy. Who knows.

Maybe something that hurt Kamala was her use of top music stars... maybe average Americans feel those celebrities are out of touch with average people. I saw this on BBC News:

a Republican at one Trump rally... said their candidate had completely "reimagined" the Republican party from its country club voter stereotype to appealing to working class families, while the Democrats had become the "party of Hollywood"

you need to be serious about inflicting permanent harm on politicians

I don't think you phrased that in the best way... I hope you mean punish them at the ballot box

Tories aren't civilised

I agree about a change to the voting system. I think proportional representation would be better.