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”.
UK
Brixham: Warning ‘heads are going to roll’ after water parasite outbreak – as ‘nearly every house in one close has someone ill’
Thousands of homes have had their boiling water restrictions lifted after a water tank infected with cryptosporidium was drained and cleaned, South West Water has said.
About 16,000 households in the Brixham area of Devon were told to boil their drinking water following 46 confirmed cases of the disease.
On Saturday afternoon South West Water lifted the boiling restrictions for 14,500 homes after water quality monitoring results found no traces of cryptosporidium in the Alston supply area.
Cryptosporidiosis is caused by a tiny parasite and can lead to vomiting, stomach cramps and watery diarrhoea lasting about two weeks.
More cases are expected to be confirmed due to a delay in developing symptoms – and about 100 more people around Brixham were reporting signs of it on Friday.
South West Water believes the parasite probably entered supplies through a damaged pipe in a field containing animal faeces.
A contaminated water tank at Hillhead reservoir, where cryptosporidium was detected, was drained overnight and “thoroughly cleaned” on Saturday, South West Water said.
One local resident said she knew of only four houses out of 21 in Raddicombe Close, on the outskirts of Brixham, which have not had at least one person fall ill with cryptosporidiosis.
The local MP has warned “heads are going to roll” over the incident.
Tory MP Anthony Mangnall, whose constituency includes Brixham, told LBC: “This is such a serious matter that yes, I think heads are going to roll over this.”
He claimed the supplier had been too slow to issue its safety alert.
16,000 businesses and residents are affected by the boil water notice. Pic: South West Water
Mr Mangnall said: “From starting this week with a denial from South West Water that it was anything to do with them, delaying the fact that the boil water notice came in – meaning thousands of people used the water network – to then issuing it on Wednesday, and there are a lot of people who are very ill.”
He called it an “absolutely disastrous week” and said locals were furious.
South West Water has said it’s “deeply sorry” and that it’s been “working tirelessly” to identify the source of the problem and fix it.
Bottled water stations have been set up in the area.
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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey accused the government of not doing enough to hold water companies to account.
He told Sky News the firms were “putting profit over the environment, over public health” after multiple cases of sewage being released into rivers and seas.
“We [Liberal Democrats] wouldn’t wait for fines for pollution,” Sir Ed said.
“There should be a sewage tax on the profits of these water companies so we can get the money now.
“There needs to be much tougher regulation… and we may need to look at restructuring the whole water industry.”
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Kelly Holmes joins anti-sewage protest
It comes as dozens of protests over sewage releases were planned for Saturday.
Surfers Against Sewage is promoting “paddle-out” demonstrations at 30 locations, with Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes among those at the event in Brighton.
Colin Smith carries a small suitcase into the dining room of their Newport home and lays it flat on the table in the centre of the room. He pops open both latches.
His wife Jan reaches inside and pulls out a sky blue child’s blanket. She holds it close to her face, closes her eyes and inhales deeply.
“It still smells of him,” she says, softly.
“This is the blanket he was wrapped in when he died.”
Their son, also called Colin, was just seven years old when he died in January 1990. His tiny body was ravaged by Hepatitis C and AIDS.
The suitcase, much like the one most families used to own in the 1980s, is just big enough to hold all the memories of their son’s short life.
Next to the blanket, are his favourite toys including a snow globe and lots of his artwork.
Jan and Colin Smith look through the suitcase containing their son’s possessions
Jan explains that Collin, loved to paint and draw and that he was very talented.
“He was 13 pounds when he died. That’s nothing is it for a seven-year-old?” Jan asks.
The question goes unanswered as a momentary silence fills the room.
Colin was born with haemophilia. The treatment for his blood clotting disorder included a product called Factor VIII.
What his parents didn’t know was that the Factor VIII was made in America using blood farmed from prisoners, drug addicts and sex workers.
Jan can recall all the fine details of that day clearly. Especially the cold, matter-of-fact way the bombshell news was delivered by doctors treating Collin.
“We went to the hospital,” Jan says, and they called us out into a corridor, kids running around, parents, and just told us that Colin had become [infected with] HIV.”
By this time their beautiful little boy had become very sick.
Colin Smith with his toys
‘You just couldn’t pick him up’
Colin senior is still haunted by the effect the virus had on his son’s body. ‘You could see every sinew and tendon in his body,” he said.
Jan said: “I think it was about ’89 that we realised because the weight loss was incredible. And we had him home for a little while, and you couldn’t just pick him up.
“We had to use a sheepskin because it hurt him. He would say: ‘Mum you’re hurting, it’s hurting’.”
Colin was treated by Professor Arthur Bloom, who died in 1992. But in the 1980s, he was one of the country’s leading haemophiliac specialists.
However, documents shown at the Infected Blood Inquiry prove Bloom’s research carried great risks and these were never explained to Colin’s parents.
Professor Arthur Bloom, who died in 1992, was one of the country’s leading haemophiliac specialists
There is a record of the first time Colin went into hospital that shows that he had never been treated for his haemophilia at this point.
Previously untreated patients were known to be useful for research as their responses to new treatments could be tracked. Patients exactly like Colin.
Also shown to the Infected Blood Inquiry was a letter from Prof Bloom to a colleague after another visit by Colin to hospital saying he’s been given Factor VIII and acknowledging that even though this was the British version there was still a risk of Hepatitis but that “this is just something haemophiliacs have to accept”.
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And a letter, dated 24 June 1983, from Prof Bloom to colleagues discusses the risk of AIDS. They accept that one possible case of AIDS has been reported.
Colin’s parents are convinced their son was being used in secret trials.
Colin Smith
“I think Colin was just unlucky enough to be born at the right time. Newly diagnosed haemophiliac, never been treated,” his father explained.
“Which is what we were after, because as documentation states that they are cheaper than chimpanzees, you know. You treat a chimp once, you can follow these children throughout their lives. And that’s what was going on.
“And this was going on from the ’70s. Colin was born in 1982. Yet they still infected him. How do you justify that?”
His mother said that they trusted the doctors at the time and never questioned their son’s treatment. “Just when we think back – at the time no, we didn’t. But when we think back, it was just blood tests. Blood tests, blood tests, blood tests.”
Hate campaign
The threat of HIV and AIDs was only just emerging. And this ignorance drove a hate-fuelled campaign against all those impacted.
This stigma forced Colin and Jan to move home and be shunned by some of their own community. All while still caring for their dying son.
“It became public when he needed to start school, for nursery, and all the parents protested and said: ‘We’re not having an AIDS kid in this school’, because we’ve been known as the AIDS family. We had AIDS that were [written] on the house and you’re not talking little.
“Well, it was like six-foot letters ‘AIDS DEAD’, we had crosses scraped into the door. The phone calls in the middle of the night were not very nice. They were the worst.”
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As Colin’s condition deteriorated his parents decided to bring him home for what would be his last Christmas with the family. It was against the wishes of Prof Bloom.
Jan and Colin were told haemophiliacs with AIDS should die in hospital and be cremated quickly. But the family ignored the hospital.
“And you know what,” Jan says. “He asked for a bike. And we actually got him a bike. He never rode it, obviously because he was too ill. But he wanted a bike. And I’m not going to not get him a bike. Because they all have bikes. But Colin never, never even sat on one.”
Colin Smith spent his last Christmas at home, against the wishes of Professor Bloom
That difficult decision to remove Colin from hospital to spend his last days with his family at home proved to be the right one.
“He was on my lap and he just got up to you, didn’t he?” Jan says looking at her husband. “He said: ‘I can’t see, daddy. I can’t see’. And then he just lay back. My hand was on his chest.
“And, you know, for a mother to actually feel the rise and fall of his chest. Waiting for it to stop. Because that’s what I was doing.
“I was waiting for it to stop. And then it stopped. And I just said: ‘I think he’s gone’. And I remember shaking him a little bit, but he’d gone.”
Jan and Colin Smith speaking to Sky News
‘I want my son to have his name back’
On Monday, Sir Brian Langstaff will deliver the long-awaited report into the infected blood scandal.
It has taken campaigners like Jan and Colin decades to achieve this. They are clear on what this report must say and how the government must respond.
Colin senior lives with the guilt of not protecting his son. He wants accountability.
“I want justice to be served properly not hypothetically. Let’s see the people who did this, hopefully criminal charges. It is manslaughter at least. I gave my son over to his killers, you know, and I can’t get to grips with that,” he says.
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Blood scandal ‘the worst thing’
For Jan, it will be recognition for a lifetime of heartbreak and grieving.
“I want people to recognise my son. And I want to be able to go to the cemetery and say, we’ve done it. And you’ve done it. That’s what I want. And I want an apology.
“People say it’s the money, it’s not the money. And I can’t get that through to people. It’s not the money. I want recognition.
“I want my son to have his name back. His name is Colin John Smith. And that’s what I want people to remember.”
Sky News will have full coverage of the infected blood report on TV, online and on the Sky News app on Monday.
The confirmed cases of a waterborne disease caused by a parasite have more than doubled.
There are now 46 confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis, a diarrhoeal illness, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said – with more than 100 further people reporting similar symptoms in the Brixham area.
Other reported cases of diarrhoea and vomiting in residents and visitors to the south Devon town are also under investigation. Hundreds of locals have also reported feeling unwell over the last two weeks on social media.
MPs and South West Water officials have confirmed the parasite most likely entered water supplies through animal faeces, but an investigation is still ongoing.
What is cryptosporidiosis disease?
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‘Cow faeces’ infected Devon water
The UKHSA first confirmed cases of the disease at around midday on Wednesday, while locals were initially told by South West Water that their tap water was uncontaminated and safe to drink.
But after testing supplies in the Hillhead reservoir, the water company found “small traces” of the parasite cryptosporidium – which causes cryptosporidiosis – and told residents in parts of Brixham and Alston to boil their drinking water on Wednesday.
A total of 16,000 households and businesses in Brixham, Boohay, Kingswear, Roseland and North West Paignton were impacted and offered £15 compensation at first.
Over the next two days, South West Water apologised to those affected and increased the offer to £115. Amid the chaos, one primary school closed its doors on Thursday due to not having safe running drinking water.
16,000 businesses and residents are affected by the boil water notice. Pic: South West Water
‘Very hard questions for water company’
Speaking to Sky News yesterday, South West Water’s chief customer officer Laura Flowerdew confirmed it was likely a broken air valve contaminated by animal faeces that had caused the outbreak.
However, she refused to give a timeframe on how long the incident would be ongoing – leaving thousands of residents facing an uncertain future.
Speaking on Friday at the University of Exeter, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said there will be “very, very hard questions” for South West Water over the outbreak.
“At the moment I think we probably need to give them the space to conduct their investigation; we know that they have identified the source,” she said.
“The public will want to know how on earth that source happened, what was the chain of events that led to this, because of course we all understand the expectation that we all have when we turn our taps on is that [we get] clean drinking water and we want to be able to trust it.”
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Most cases of cryptosporidiosis pass in two weeks. Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. File pic: Dr_Microbe/iStock
‘Expect to see more cases’
Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall also warned the boil notice could last “at least a further six or seven days” and called for more transparency.
Professor Paul Hunter, a specialist in medical microbiology at the University of East Anglia, told Sky News if the parasite was “a continuous thing” present in water supplies for a prolonged period, then “you’d expect to see more cases” for another two weeks.
It comes as hotel owners in the area told Sky News the outbreak has led to people cancelling their stay, while a head chef said “I can’t wash salad in the sink”.
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‘Destroyed our business’
Stephen Colemansfield, owner of Redlands Guest House in Brixham, told Sky News the outbreak has “destroyed our business at the moment”.
“Our guests have cancelled because of the mixed messages that are being sent out by South West Water.”
Rob, head chef at the Steam Packet Inn in Kingswear near Dartmouth, also said his brother-in-law is one of the 46 confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis and has been sick for two weeks.
The UKHSA is working with Torbay Council, South West Water, NHS Devon and the Environment Agency on the incident.
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