Sir Keir Starmer KC is among the most successful British politicians of the past half-century. In just four years, Sir Keir took the Labour Party from its worst defeat since 1935 to a 411-seat landslide result that puts him above Clement Attlee and just below Sir Tony Blair in the pantheon of Labour prime ministers. This came after a garlanded career as a human-rights barrister, in which a man from a modest background rose to the top of a profession that is both snobbish and competitive. Now, aged 62, Sir Keir stands atop a political system that gives near-untrammelled executive power to someone with a colossal majority in Parliament. And yet a simple question is asked in Westminster: is the prime minister a chump?
Those around the prime minister think so. “Get In”, a new account of Sir Keir’s rise by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, offers a glossary of their thoughts in a book that is as excruciating as it is insightful. “It’s impossible to work out whether Keir realises he is a pawn in a chess game,” says one anonymous adviser. “Or does he like being a pawn in a chess game, provided it makes him powerful?” Another chosen metaphor is the Docklands Light Railway, a driverless train line in south-east London: “Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR.”
At times, the leader of a G7 country is seen as nothing more than a useful idiot by those closest to him. Instead, Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, serves as both head and heart for Sir Keir. The prime minister, runs the logic, is simply not a politician. Or as Mr McSweeney puts it: “Keir acts like an hr manager, not a leader.” Even those who praise the prime minister end up burying him. Peter Hyman, a former Blairite adviser, said: “Unlike other leaders I’ve seen, he’s very experiential.” Sir Keir learns by doing, like a toddler squishing playdough through his hands.
In this telling, when Sir Keir is master of his own destiny it invariably leads to some concrete-footed error. He is, after all, a human-rights lawyer who accidentally endorsed war crimes on a radio show when discussing how Israel could respond to the attacks by Hamas in October 2023. This was duly turned into viral videos that crushed the party’s support among Muslims, formerly a solid base that shows little sign of returning to the party.
A low opinion of the man in 10 Downing Street is not limited to underlings. Cabinet colleagues regard Sir Keir with a mix of curiosity and contempt. The cabinet is full of political animals, who do not see Sir Keir as one of their own. Sir Keir professes to dislike Westminster politics and the Labour Party’s internal shenanigans; others live for it. None of those at the top of government—whether Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, or Pat McFadden, who runs the Cabinet Office—initially thought Sir Keir was right for the job. Sir Keir’s rise is best explained by luck and circumstance. Rank jealousy is always an underrated factor in politics. How are you living my dream?
Many in the cabinet behave as if the prime minister is simply not there. Britain has come to expect imperial prime ministers, who dominate departments. Under Sir Keir, Downing Street has overseen decolonisation. Power resides once again with cabinet ministers, who are going feral. Departments veer in different ideological directions. Sometimes this is harmless. When it comes to health, the solution is more choice for patients and less cosseting of producers; in education the recipe is the opposite, with teachers coddled and choice a dirty word. Sometimes, however, this incoherence matters. An all-out push for development by the Treasury pulls against the headlong rush towards net zero. It is a tension that will snap soon enough.
If Sir Keir is a pawn, then he may be sacrificed. At the moment, this would be a bad move for those who profess to control him. For now, Labour members—a soft-hearted bunch, according to the hard-hearted men around the prime minister—choose the next leader and therefore prime minister. What if they pick the wrong person? Switching Labour’s rules to ensure only mps pick the leader when in power would solve that. It could be sold as a “Liz Truss lock” (Ms Truss was foisted on Conservative mps by the party’s strange members). Allowing this change would be the equivalent of Sir Keir painting a target on his chest and marching across a shooting range. It would, in short, be the actions of a chump.
Vote chump!
By demeaning the man they serve, Sir Keir’s advisers and colleagues damn themselves. Those who insist they are actually running the show have staged a farce. Labour squandered its first months in power with rows between self-regarding advisers and a symphony of “I thought you had the plan”-type excuses. This time last year Labour was polling above 40 points. Now it is on a little more than half that. Advisers rarely last when well-known outside Westminster. “Loudly call your boss a chump” is, funnily enough, not a quote from Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
Westminster is a world in which individual genius or idiocy is always seen as the reason for something going well or badly. Yet the historic political success of Sir Keir crashes against the plodding reality of the man. A deeply flawed prime minister can still succeed. For all his failings, Sir Keir still polls above all of his alternatives. Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition, is held in contempt by her own Conservative Party, which in turn has yet to grapple with its own unpopularity. Nigel Farage brings Reform a high floor and a low ceiling. Sometimes things are beyond the control of individual politicians and advisers. Sir Keir is proof that context matters far more than the content. Even a chump can make it to the top. ■
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