Keir Starmer’s brains trust

Who are Keir Starmer’s big thinkers? Every political leader has them: folk who provoke them and offer a type of politics and policy that they can pick and choose from. Ed Miliband had ‘salons’ with key thinkers who he respected, David Cameron had Steve Hilton, and Tony Blair had a whole suite of colleagues working on his project in opposition. Starmer hasn’t been in politics for very long, which is one of the reasons he felt the need to write such a long essay setting out what he thinks: he doesn’t have the back catalogue of speeches and pamphlets that many other senior politicians do.

He’s not really a ‘salon’ type as Miliband was, but I understand that the former Labour leader is one of Starmer’s ‘key thinkers’, with allies saying that he continues to brim with ideas and reflections from his time at the helm. He has also published a book recently about big ideas, just to underline what he sees as being his appeal to Starmer.