Sir Keir Starmer, the cynical leader
A critical biography paints the Labour leader as ruthless. He should take the compliment
FOR A MAN who could be prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer enjoys a peculiar reputation as a political naïf. The Labour leader was elected as an MP only in 2015, after a decorated career as a human-rights barrister and a stint as the director of public prosecutions. By 2020 he was party leader. To his critics, he has the air of a hobbyist who had reached the top of one profession and fancied a go at another, and who ended up as a potential prime minister due to circumstance rather than skill. An enjoyably hostile new biography of Sir Keir by Oliver Eagleton, an editor at the New Left Review, a socialist journal, offers an alternative view.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Sir Keir, the cynic”
Britain April 30th 2022
- Nationalists are set for a historic win in Northern Ireland's vote
- Brexit has clobbered smaller businesses
- The NHS is in seriously poor shape
- Piers Morgan is the face of TalkTV
- Britain’s student-finance system is being overhauled, again
- In Britain, internal migration is out of favour
- Sir Keir Starmer, the cynical leader
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