Keir Starmer: The Biography – five things we learned

Opinion polls suggest Keir Starmer is almost certain to be Britain's next prime minister, but many voters are far less clear about what lies behind the Labour leader's mask. 

Some answers may be found in a new biography by Tom Baldwin, a "political correspondent steeped in New Labour legend", said Robert McCrum in The Independent. Although "unauthorised", said Ben Riley-Smith in The Telegraph, "Keir Starmer: The Biography" leans on "unparalleled access to Sir Keir and his inner circle", enabling Baldwin to "flesh out a public figure" who has been "reluctant to open up about his private life".

Here are five things revealed by the new book, out next week.

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'Complex' family relationships

Starmer is "quoted frequently and candidly" about his childhood in the new biography, said Riley-Smith, and his "adoration" for his mother, Jo, "shines through". She had Still's disease, which eventually led to her requiring a wheelchair. The resulting "assumption of responsibility at home throughout his school years" may be why Starmer has such a "sober, sincere, public service-minded approach today". 

His relationship with father, Rodney, was more "complex", Riley-Smith wrote. The Labour leader visited his father in hospital shortly before his death, in 2018, but "regrets to this day" that he "didn't tell his father how much he meant to him". Rodney was "intimidating to some, stand-offish to others", but was said by those who knew him to "have a good heart". 

And despite his "surliness", said Robbie Griffiths in the London Evening Standard, a "stash of newspaper clippings" found after his death "showed that Rodney had been quietly proud of his son".

The new biography also reveals what the Labour leader told Baldwin was his "real, deep sadness" for his younger brother, Nick. Starmer said his brother has had a "really tough life" after complications at birth resulted in learning difficulties.

Starmer's 'footballism'

There is an "absence of Labour theory" in the book, said McCrum in The Independent, and "virtually no reference to political philosophy". But Baldwin does analyse Starmer's "footballism", and how the game has "shaped his understanding of the English voters' sense of place" and "identity".

An Arsenal fan who regularly attends games at the Emirates Stadium in London, Starmer also frequently plays football on Sundays with "old friends who have nothing to do with Westminster" near his home in Kentish Town, north London. These games help to "keep his feet on the ground".

Politicians who "play the football card" may make "cynical commentators recoil in horror", said McCrum. But the biographer seems convinced that football is the driving force behind Starmer's "pragmatic reluctance to be pigeonholed ideologically" and his "dedication to the art of winning".

'No smoking gun'

The book paints a portrait of a man with a "fiercely competitive desire to win" who is "willing to do whatever it takes", said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. But Baldwin declares at the outset that anyone "hoping to find these pages spattered with blood".

The biography reveals no "uncharacteristically juicy" scandals "lurking" in Starmer's history, Hinsliff said. And there is "no smoking gun" from his time as director of public prosecutions either. 

The biographer describes Starmer's time at the Crown Prosecution Service as "one of diligently prosecuting sexual abuse cases previously treated as too difficult".

Brexit, Corbyn and leadership

Diving into politics at the age of 52, Starmer assumed he might have "quickly" become a minister had Labour won the 2015 election, wrote Andrew Marr in The New Statesman. Instead, the next five years in opposition felt "like a prison sentence", Starmer recalled.

This "sense of powerlessness was reinforced" by Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader and by Brexit, said Marr. Starmer "did not admire Corbyn personally" and only stayed in his role to "wage a parliamentary fight for a softer Brexit". 

The book "convincingly argues" that Starmer was "no enthusiast for reversing Brexit". Yet he sparked "furious reactions" from Corbyn's team when he put Remain as an option in a second referendum without authorisation, said Marr. It was seen by Tories as a "cynical trick" to "prepare for a leadership contest". Starmer said it was his attempt to "fix the problem".

His "careful" and "quietly planned" push to become leader was in the works even before Labour's 2019 general election defeat, said Marr. By then, Starmer was prepared to "woo members by talking left" and then "ditch the commitments he made" once he'd taken control of the party.

Close to resigning 

Starmer allegedly had to be "persuaded to stay" after Labour lost the Hartlepool constituency in 2021, a seat it had held since 1974. The new book suggests that Starmer told "close aides in the immediate aftermath" that he would step down, said Nadeem Badshah in The Guardian.

Chris Ward, a former aide, told Baldwin that Starmer initially intended to stand down because he saw the result as "a personal rejection", and a sign that "the party was going backwards". Starmer's wife, Victoria, was "among those who urged him not to act too hastily" in the wake of the defeat.

To Starmer, the defeat felt like he had been "kicked in the guts", he is quoted as saying in the biography. It was a moment when he thought "we are not going to be able to do this".