The Prime Minister In Waiting – but who really is Keir Starmer?
Sir Keir Starmer is a Prime Minister In Waiting.
The job is not in the bag unless and until the votes have been cast in Labour‘s favour – as he and his close advisers are the first to point out.
But all the circumstantial evidence from elections and opinion polls suggests that Starmer is far and away the person most likely to be the occupant of 10 Downing Street after the general election due in the next 11 months.
PMIW is not a status conferred on all opposition leaders. Interest only peaks when a change of government is in the air. Scrutiny turns from the struggling incumbent prime minister to new hope.
Tony Blair, before 1997, and David Cameron, before 2010, both basked in the attention.
Starmer is less comfortable in the spotlight. Yet, in spite of his reticence, at the equivalent stage in his pursuit of power he is more of an odds-on favourite to take over the government than Blair or Cameron ever were.
Tony Blair was popular ahead of his election win in 1997. Pic: PA
So, who is Sir Keir Starmer, the UK’s likely next prime minister? A flurry of interviews and profiles are all part of the full PMIW treatment, topped off by a campaign biography of the candidate.
On cue, Keir Starmer: The Biography is published next week. The blurb insists the book is “authoritative – not authorised”, but it is based on “many hours of interviews” with Sir Keir, his family, friends and close colleagues.
The original plan was for Tom Baldwin, a Times journalist turned spokesman for then Labour leader Ed Miliband, to ghost write a Starmer autobiography. With typical modesty, Starmer abandoned that idea and decided to leave Baldwin to produce his own sympathetic portrait independently.
The book was “written”, Baldwin says, “with the respect a serious grown-up leader deserves”.
A lot changes when a political leader becomes a PMIW. At the recent Munich Defence Conference, the diaries of foreign leaders quickly clear if for a meeting with the coming man.
Starmer’s dance card there included US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and heads of government of Germany, Finland, Estonia and Ireland.
Rishi Sunak did not attend. David Cameron and Grant Shapps represented the UK government.
Rishi Sunak looks likely to leave Downing Street at the next election. Pic: PA
As is normal practice before a general election, the opposition have been granted access to senior civil servants to discuss their plans for government if they win.
These activities are being scrutinised closely, especially when they involved Sue Gray, the widely feared former civil service enforcer who is now Starmer’s chief of staff.
Gray’s name was linked – inaccurately and inflammatorily – to the talks with Speaker Hoyle over the Israel-Gaza votes in the Commons. Fallout is still crashing down from Hoyle’s decision to break with precedent.
Meanwhile, rightly or wrongly, the UK parliament’s agreed position on “an immediate ceasefire” is the amendment, slowly and painfully put together by the leader of the opposition.
For all the sound and fury, the tectonic plates under British government seem to have shifted prematurely on this foreign policy matter.
One recurring feature of Starmer’s life story is that he has been “a lucky general”, as Napoleon put it.
Circumstances have often gone in his favour and he has made the best of them, although he has done little or nothing to bring them about.
He owes his PMIW standing in large part by default to the self-destructive missteps of recent Conservative governments.
Keir Starmer has benefited from a series of mistakes by the Tories. Pic: PA
Baldwin cannot take his thoroughly researched book past the start of this campaign year into contemporary events.
He can tell the reader a great deal about how Starmer got here and delve into his life story.
Starmer habitually tags his public appearances with the terse summary “my mother was a nurse, my dad was a toolmaker, money was short, the telephone was sometimes cut off”.
This sends out a signal to Britain’s class-conscious society that first impressions are wrong about The Right Honourable Keir Starmer KC MP.
Starmer is neither “posh” nor a hereditary baronet, but he is hoping to emulate Labour’s election winning trio of Prime Ministers Attlee, Wilson and Blair.
The Labour frontbencher Nick Thomas-Symonds has written biographies of Attlee and Wilson and tells Baldwin that “Keir is far more working class than either of them, not only in terms of the background alone but because it’s combined with a defining story of aspiration”.
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Starmer will be the first prime minister since Gordon Brown not to have been an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, although after Leeds University he continued his upward trajectory there as a post-graduate.
He was the only one of his siblings to go to a selective grammar school in Reigate.
The only time his father praised him, he said he was proud of him passing the 11-plus, later adding that he was also as proud of his brother, who had learning difficulties.
His childhood was happy, but hard graft. His father Ron was remote and his mother suffered from a debilitating illness. Starmer flourished nonetheless.
He was a key player in local amateur football teams and won a flute scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music.
In words that could sum up his approach to other aspects of his life, Starmer comments of the Guildhall that there were people there who were “properly gifted… whereas I was just someone who had got to a certain level through practice, repetition and hard work”.
Starmer, who is 62, came late to Westminster politics and was only elected to his seat of Holborn and St Pancras, in inner north London, in 2015.
Keir Starmer as a Labour candidate in 2015, flanked by Sadiq Khan and Yvette Cooper. Pic: PA
Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, describes Starmer as “the least political person in politics I know”. Yet his commitment to Labour runs through his life.
His parents named him after the party’s founder Keir Hardie. At election times, their pebble-dashed home was festooned with Labour posters.
Keir joined the Young Socialists as a teenager and canvassed on the doorstep. Members of the public complained to his headmaster about rowdy arguments on the top of the bus to school, often with a classmate who remains a friend, Andrew Sullivan, now a leading liberal conservative commentator in the US.
As a young barrister, Starmer joined the progressive Doughty Street Chambers and sought out human rights cases, especially fighting the death penalty.
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His switch to become Director of Public Prosecutions was a surprise “curveball” for his friends and fellow lawyers.
His motives are not adequately explained in the biography beyond a comment that he thought everyone would benefit from swifter and more efficient justice.
For all his ambition, Starmer applies strict standards to himself. He has nearly quit twice since becoming leader – after Labour lost the Hartlepool byelection to Boris Johnson and when he said he would resign if fined over “beergate”, the drink with party activists during the pandemic.
The overriding image of Starmer from the book is of a determined and pragmatic man, driven to win and prepared to compromise to get there.
Keir Starmer defending serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet. Pic: PA
He justifies staying in Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet, calculating that only someone who had served under him would be elected by the membership as the next leader.
Later, his luck held as Corbyn and his close allies disqualified themselves over antisemitism.
Starmer’s friends say the humour, generosity and loyalty of the man they know do not come across from the politician they see on the television.
His biographer makes the interesting observation that public exposure is loosening Sir Keir up.
Labour’s published proposal for transforming Britain is modest, and the economic circumstances are constraining.
For all that, the Prime Minister In Waiting’s last words in the book are “I just want to get things done”.
Victims of grooming gangs and modern slavery are being denied compensation by a government scheme because of their criminal records, Sky News has learned.
Analysis of official figures by Sky News’ Data & Forensics team shows more than 11,000 victims of crime over the last decade have been denied payouts because of their unspent convictions, including children.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority can award money to victims of violent crime, including sexual abuse.
It is the only government compensation scheme for victims – for those unable to work due to injuries, the money can be vital.
But, if an applicant has a criminal record, they are automatically refused compensation with limited exceptions.
Those with unspent convictions sometimes receive reduced sums.
Sky News has found that at least 130 children with criminal records have received reduced awards over the last 10 years, including 50 victims of sex abuse, four victims of brain damage, and one child who lost sight in an eye.
This rule on unspent convictions is based on the idea that public funds should only compensate blameless victims of crime and not, for example, a gang member who was injured in a fight.
But many argue the policy punishes those who have been forced to offend by exploiters, as well as victims of child sexual abuse.
‘I was frustrated that I wasn’t being believed’
Arthur Sherry, 43, from Perranporth in Cornwall was regularly abused by his babysitter from the age of five, including suffering rape.
In 2008, he reported it to Devon and Cornwall Police, alongside two other victims. He alleges the police did not believe him, and charges were not brought against his abuser.
Arthur Sherry, who was abused as a child, says he was denied compensation because of his criminal record
Arthur became angry and descended into addiction as a “coping mechanism”, becoming suicidal, and was repeatedly arrested for minor offences, such as making false calls to the emergency services.
“I wasn’t getting support from any agencies, and no one asked me, ‘Why is this man ringing the emergency services all the time?'”
“It was a cry for help. I was frustrated that I wasn’t being believed.”
Eventually, Arthur’s abuser, Shaun Burton, was convicted of multiple offences against children, including 11 counts of indecency with a child in relation to Mr Sherry.
But when Arthur, who suffers from complex PTSD, subsequently tried to make a claim through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in 2013, it was rejected because of his criminal record and because he submitted his application beyond CICA’s time limit.
He was not allowed to appeal the decision.
Arthur, aged 12 in the picture, was regularly abused by his babysitter, Shaun Burton, from the age of five
Many survivors of grooming gangs have criminal records due to being exploited and coerced.
While the government recently announced plans to disregard child prostitution convictions for these victims, many are urging authorities to go further and pardon all related offences.
Former victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird said: “They were not exercising their own free will and voluntarily committing crime, so there should be a discretion to look at that and say, ‘No, that wasn’t their fault’.
“They should get compensation for all the evil that was done to them by that gang.”
In 2022, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse recommended that the government amend the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme so that “applicants with unspent convictions are not automatically excluded where offences are likely to be linked to the circumstances of their sexual abuse as a child”.
The government has refused to act on this recommendation.
However, Labour MP Sarah Champion has tabled an amendment to the upcoming Victims and Courts Bill, hoping to implement it, as well as widen eligibility to the scheme.
“Victims are seen as running a cannabis farm and get a conviction, before it actually turns out that they were a victim of modern slavery.
“These people, who are very clearly recognised as victims and survivors, aren’t getting the money that’s owed to them. The system is broken and the ministers need to get rid of it.”
‘I was frustrated that I wasn’t being believed,’ Arthur tells Sky News’ Alice Porter
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A government spokesperson said: “Last year, more than £164m was paid out under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme to victims, and we are going further by removing the time limit for civil personal injury claims and doubling Home Office funding for services supporting adult victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
“Changes to the way we compensate victims have been considered by successive governments, and our priority must always be to treat all victims of violence equally.”
Devon and Cornwall Police said: “Tackling sexual offending is a key priority for Devon & Cornwall Police and we are working hard to bring offenders to justice.
“We take reports of all sexual offences seriously and will carry out thorough investigations into reports, looking at all viable lines of enquiry.”
Nathan Gill was at Manchester airport, about to board a flight to Russia, when accepting bribes finally caught up with him.
Gill, the former leader of Reform UK Wales and a one-time member of the European Parliament, who on Friday was jailed for 10-a-half-years, was stopped by police before boarding and had his phone seized in 2021.
While they interrogated him, his home in Anglesey was raided, with detectives discovering more electronics and cash piles of €5,000 (£4,400) and $5,000 (£3,800) respectively.
Nathan Gill being questioned. Pic: Met Police
The evidence on Gill’s phone would damn him – he was in contact with a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine, Oleg Voloshyn, and had agreed to boost pro-Russia viewpoints in exchange for money.
Voloshyn would dictate the statement, and Gill would repeat it – in some cases, almost word for word – in the media or the European Parliament.
In one instance, Gill appeared on the now-banned Ukrainian TV channel, 112 Ukraine, which was known for its pro-Russian stance.
In the interview, he was critical of the Ukrainian decision to open criminal proceedings against Viktor Medvedchuk, the owner of the television channel and a personal friend of Vladimir Putin.
Nathan Gill. Pic: Met Police
Speaking to the outlet, he said he was “very concerned” about the investigation, and wondered whether it was meant to silence “opposition politicians”.
Prosecutors said messages on Gill’s phone showed that this was at his paymaster’s instruction, with Voloshyn offering a “reward” if he would say that it was unacceptable to persecute a person for their political convictions.
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Voloshyn also offered the MEP €2,000 (£1,750) if he would express concern that Mr Medvedchuk could no longer mediate with Russia on Ukraine’s behalf, the court heard.
He added that “V” – understood to be Mr Medvedchuk – did not believe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had “true intentions to pursue a peace agenda”, prosecutors said.
Bundles of cash were recovered from Gill’s home. Pic: Met Police
Sure enough, Gill appeared on 112 Ukraine saying it was “very sad” that Mr Medvedchuk felt he no longer had Mr Zelensky’s backing to act as a mediator with Russia, and suggested that using him “would be a sensible thing to do”.
The messages traded in innuendo, referring to the exchange of “Xmas gifts” or “postcards” instead of money.
But as the pair grew more comfortable with each other, they bargained more explicitly, with the sum of “£5k” quoted for Gill’s work.
Dominic Murphy, head of Counter Terrorism Command at the Met Police, said Gill had also offered access to other MEPs.
“This is where we get into that slightly odd situation where it feels very much like a real effort to undermine democracy here,” he said.
“This is Nathan Gill reaching out to individuals that he knows, who are Brits, who might be willing to be paid to go and make speeches.”
Commander Murphy declined to name names, but said there was an ongoing investigation and that other people had been spoken to.
None of the pro-Brexit MEPs Gill allegedly approached have been interviewed under caution.
Pic: Met Police
Police confirmed there was no evidence to suggest Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was involved.
Gill was stopped at Manchester Airport on 13 September 2021, under schedule 3 of the Counter Terrorism and Borders Security Act 2019.
He offered police no explanation for his actions and answered no comment in a March 2022 police interview.
But the 52-year-old is believed to have had financial problems.
Mr Murphy added that while Gill appeared to have pro-Russian sympathies, he was primarily motivated by money.
The ex-MEP has been jailed for 10-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to eight counts of bribery between December 2018 and July 2019.
Following an investigation by counter-terrorism police, officers said they believe Gill likely took a minimum of £40,000 in cash and was offering to introduce other British MEPs so they could be bribed.
Voloshyn was picked up by the authorities on a trip to the US in 2021, which enabled the FBI to discover his end of the conversation.
He is now believed to be in Russia, but has been sanctioned by the UK government over allegations of trying to destabilise Ukraine.
Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery over pro-Russian statements. Including to media outlet 112 Ukraine. Pic: Met Police
He remains wanted in both Britain and Ukraine.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “Mr Gill’s actions were reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable.
“We are glad that justice has been served and fully welcome the sentence Nathan Gill has received.”
Mr Farage, the Reform UK leader, said: “An investigation into Russian and Chinese influence over British politics would be welcome.”
The MP for Clacton previously described his former colleague as a “bad apple” and said he was “shocked” after Gill pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery.
He said: “Any political party can find in their midst all sorts of terrible people.
“You can never, ever guarantee 100% that everyone you meet in your life, you shake hands with in the pub, is a good person.”
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