Keir starmer

Sir Keir Starmer’s split personality at PMQs

It’s official. The Labour party now has two leaders. Both are knights. But it’s hard to say which is the real Sir Keir Starmer. Not even Sir Keir Starmer seems to know. Good Sir Keir is the kindly, decent comrade who wants to aid his fellow man at a time of crisis. Wicked Sir Keir is the dastardly villain who plots to unhorse his foe with a poisoned lance or a hidden dagger. At PMQs he began as Good Sir Keir. He thanked Boris for extending the furlough and for voicing his opposition to racial prejudice. Then he got all dastardly. He read out a fistful of statistics proving that

An 11-year-old’s birthday party was hijacked by Brexit

Saturday night we ate outside next to the floodlit rock face. Four adult guests came puffing up the path and one child, George, celebrating his 11th birthday. A string of low-wattage coloured bulbs hung above our heads. Chicken curry. Dahl. Pink wine. Yellow champagne. Little brass oil lamps on the table. John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers — trite lyrics, sublime guitar — for the birthday playlist. A cream-filled birthday cake in the fridge awaited the right moment. Dominic Cummings was all the rage that day and every one of our adult guests was an ardent Remainer. As passionately tribal in their globalist philosophy as football fans, they’d gone into confinement

Could Keir Starmer become a populist politician?

It has been a remarkable week. Boris Johnson’s refusal to sack Dominic Cummings for what the vast majority of Britons consider a flagrant breach of lockdown rules has caused his personal ratings to tumble. According to YouGov his party has seen a 15 per cent lead over Labour collapse to just 6 per cent in a matter of days. Johnson’s insistence that Cummings has done no wrong and that the country should move on from the issue and focus on tackling Covid suggests the Prime Minister hopes the fickle British public will eventually lose interest. Perhaps he is right: and with the next election four years away there is still

Boris Johnson needs to admit his coronavirus mistakes

Be careful what you wish for. Over the past few years, a fair number of thoughtful Tories have included a strange item in their letters to Santa Claus. They wanted an effective Leader of the Opposition, who could keep ministers under pressure and force them to raise their game, which would lead to better government. Well, after nearly a decade-long pursuit of unelectability, Labour has granted the Tories their wish. The Tories are not enjoying it. One suspects that Keir Starmer was always a pretty forensic character, even before he sharpened his cross-examining technique at the Bar. Moreover, a virtual House of Commons plays to his skills, but not the

PMQs: Starmer’s swipes leave Boris unbowed

Keir Starmer is a very rum package. His body and his manner seem to belong to different organisms. His physique is martial, sturdy, invincible. The square jaw, the trunk-like neck, the unsettlingly symmetrical face, the blue but eerily lifeless eyes. But his personality has no trace of manliness at all. He seems grannyish, nervy, over-delicate, like an unobtrusive footman who finds himself lord of the manor following a paternity test. There’s something about him that doesn’t ring true. His voice is like the creak of a door in a chapel of rest. But he’s an effective debater. He enjoys using statistics to inflict horrors on his opponent. Today, he unleashed

John Connolly

Keir Starmer trips up Boris Johnson at PMQs

The majority of today’s PMQs face-off between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer concerned the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak in care homes, after the Office for National Statistics reported yesterday that over 8,000 care home residents have died of Covid-19 – a figure that is expected to rise in the coming weeks. Boris Johnson’s weakest moments in the session were when Starmer criticised the policy of moving elderly patients from hospitals to care homes at the beginning of the crisis, before they received a negative coronavirus test. The leader of the Labour party quoted a cardiologist who claimed that suspected coronavirus cases were discharged from hospitals into care homes

Starmer’s Telegraph splash is a perfect piece of politics

The Daily Telegraph is considered the voice of the Conservative grassroots – so today’s splash will have driven a sliver of ice into minister’ veins. Here is the new leader of the opposition, a knight of the realm no less, urging the government to get a grip of the Covid-19 outbreak in care homes. ‘We owe so much to the generation of VE Day,’ he says. ‘We must do everything we can to care for and support them through the current crisis.’ On the day we remember the end of hostilities in Europe, Sir Keir Starmer has planted his tanks boldly on the Tories’ lawn. We should be wary of reading

Keir Starmer comes third in a two horse race

Following a weekend of negative headlines for the government over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, any cross-party truce to hold off criticism of the Prime Minister while he recovers is well and truly over. However, one group with whom Boris Johnson remains popular is the general public. In recent weeks, the Conservatives have enjoyed some of their best approval ratings since Johnson entered office. The election of Keir Starmer as Labour leader was billed as something that could change this. However, so far any Starmer effect has failed to materialise. A YouGov poll asking who out of Boris Johnson or Keir Starmer would make the best Prime Minister puts Johnson in the lead at 46 per

Keir Starmer is the conservative we need in this time of crisis

These are discombobulating times. A deadly pandemic; the United States at sea, China belligerent and the EU at war with itself. British politics was in flux before the virus hit. Now it is vertiginous. The Tory party, long seen as the guardian of the status quo, has been forced to change tack as it deals with the fallout. Keir Starmer, recently elected as Labour leader, will play a vital role in this realignment – but not one we would once have envisaged. Starmer’s election as Labour leader in the midst of coronavirus is a good thing. He is the anti-Corbyn for a Labour party looking for calm and stability after

Labour’s leaked report has forced Starmer’s hand

It was all going so well for Sir Keir Starmer. He won the Labour leadership handsomely, appointed a fresh shadow cabinet, and was riding a wave of blessed non-scrutiny thanks to Covid-19. He had begun to make amends to the Jewish community for his party’s racist vendetta against them and there was a solid chance that political correspondents would learn how to spell his name. Then, it leaked. An 860-page dossier prepared in the final months of Corbyn’s tenure which, going by the reports of those who have seen it, essentially exculpates the party of mishandling anti-Semitism charges. It says these complaints were not treated differently, a central allegation made

Portrait of the week: Queen speaks, mobile masts burn and Boris Johnson goes into hospital

Home The number of people who had died from the coronavirus disease Covid-19 in the UK by Sunday 5 April was 4,313, compared with a total of 1,228 by 29 March, and of 281 by 22 March. In the following two days the total rose to 5,373. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, was taken to hospital after his Covid-19 symptoms had persisted for ten days, and then to intensive care. His fiancée, Carrie Symonds, roughly six months pregnant, had spent a week in bed with Covid-19 symptoms. The aim was for there to be 100,000 coronavirus tests a day in England by the end of April, Matt Hancock, the Health

Full list: Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Cabinet

Keir Starmer, the newly elected leader of the Labour party, has taken no prisoners with his cabinet reshuffle. Corbyn allies like Richard Burgon are out, and Ed Miliband is back. Here is the full make-up of Starmer’s top team: Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Anneliese DoddsFormerly: John McDonnell An Oxford PPE graduate, Dodds is a long time supporter of Starmer’s leadership campaign. She has served as a shadow Treasury minister since July 2017. She had even been tipped for promotion by the former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in early March, as he said he was ‘hoping she gets a significant role in the new administration’. Dodds is the first woman to be

How Keir Starmer’s message was pitch perfect

It was not the acceptance speech he could have anticipated making when the campaign for the Labour leadership began many months ago, but it was one Keir Starmer used to define the type of leader he would be during the pandemic, and beyond. Recorded before he was confirmed as Jeremy Corbyn’s successor, Starmer spent most of his speech addressing, not Labour’s electoral crisis, but the national emergency provoked by Covid-19. Significantly, he talked to the country first, rather than his party’s members – 56.2 per cent of whom had just made him leader. Starmer positioned his Labour party as the solution to the country’s current ills Elected promising to reunite

Keir Starmer may have a better chance of taking Labour to power than anyone expected

First impressions matter in politics. Once the public have made their mind up about a politician, they rarely change it. This is why the first 100 days in charge are so important for any new leader. Get off to a good start, and everything is possible. Stumble out of the gate and your race is run. Keir Starmer is widely expected to be announced as the new Labour leader on Saturday, but he faces the prospect of having to keep his distance from the electorate for the bulk of his first 100 days. The pandemic means that he won’t have the choices that normally come to the winner. There can

Drinking in isolation is far less appealing

Spring sense, caressing sunshine: last week, London enjoyed village cricket weather. Even in normal circumstances, the season would not have begun; the anticipation would. Soon, one would be watching the run-stealers flicker to and fro, a pint of beer at hand. ‘A pint of beer’, four simple words, but in these times my tastebuds were flooded with memory. Où sont les boissons d’antan? Friends of different strategems were fighting off that lowering virus, cabin-fever. I am re-reading Macaulay — there is no more joyous prose in English — and alternating him with Gibbon, whom I am ashamed to have never read all the way through, at a ratio of four

What would a Keir Starmer Labour party look like?

There’s still a month of the Labour leadership contest to go but most MPs have already concluded that Keir Starmer will win. The shadow Brexit secretary has led in every category so far: MPs, unions and local parties. As the contest enters its final stage, polling suggests the membership agree and Sir Keir will sail through. His closest rival, Rebecca Long-Bailey, is now seen as a ten-to-one outsider. One bookmaker is already paying out on a Starmer victory. But if the race seems all but over, the conversation about what he’ll do as Labour leader is very much on-going. Is he the leader that the party’s moderates have craved to

Corbynite academic: I’ll leave the UK if Starmer wins

Spare a thought for the Corbynites. Not only have they spectacularly crashed the only viable parliamentary vehicle for the left, they’ve also managed to screw up what was meant to be a socialist coronation. So it must be particularly difficult for David Graeber, an anthropology professor at the LSE and avid Corbyn supporter. He tweeted earlier today that he would consider emigrating if the soft left former director of public prosecutions won the leadership race: Given the odds of a Starmer win, Professor Graeber should probably start packing for his new life now. Could Mr S suggest Venezuela or Cuba as possible destinations for the fleeing academic?

Starmer’s double standards

Keir Starmer has complained to the head of the civil service after a spat between political journalists and Downing Street. The row broke out after No. 10 insisted that only ‘senior, specialist members of the lobby’ could attend a briefing with Brexit negotiator David Frost. Several journalists decided to walk out of No. 10 as a result. But now Sir Keir has come to their rescue. The Labour leadership hopeful has written to Sir Mark Sedwill criticising Boris Johnson’s media operation. In the letter, which carries Starmer’s official campaign logo, the former Corbyn loyalist complained that briefing attendees ‘should not be determined by political favouritism’. The Holborn MP goes on

Keir Starmer makes it onto the Labour leadership ballot: who else will join him?

Keir Starmer has made it through to the final round of the Labour leadership contest, having secured the backing of shop workers’ union Usdaw. The party’s rules state that a candidate needs to get the backing of three affiliated organisations, of which two must be trade unions (or the nomination of at least 33 constituency Labour parties), and along with the earlier backing of Unison and Labour’s Environment Campaign SERA, Starmer has made it. Usdaw also nominated Angela Rayner for the deputy leadership, and she is now also through to the final round of her contest. This is a big week for nominations from affiliates, with both the GMB and

Keir Starmer wins big union backing in Labour leadership contest

Keir Starmer, clearly the frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, has just secured the backing of trade union Unison. This is the first union endorsement in the contest and is a huge boost to a campaign that is already going very well. Unison was among Jeremy Corbyn’s backers in the 2016 contest, and has the potential to deliver more votes than the other affiliated trade unions. Starmer is also steaming ahead with nominations from MPs and MEPs, with 23 members publicly backing him. Far behind him in second place is Rebecca Long Bailey, with seven nominations currently. A number of MPs and activists who I have spoken to in recent