Is Keir Starmer brilliant or just lucky?
The Labour leader’s advance owes more to Tory failure than to any success on his part.
ByKeir Starmer
Keir Rodney Starmer is a Labour Party politician who became Prime Minister on 5 July 2024. He has been MP for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015 and leader of Labour since April 2020. Starmer, born in 1962, studied law at the University of Leeds and Oxford, then became a barrister specialising in human rights. In 2008 he was appointed director of public prosecutions, for a five-year term. Find news, comment, and analysis about him here.
Growth through devolution will be Labour’s election pitch
The question is whether wrapping green policy, levelling up and regional power into one is comprehensible.
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Starmer’s wrong – everyone knows we’d be better off reversing Brexit
We've been here before: you can’t get the benefits of closeness to the EU without rejoining its single market.
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Labour’s constitutional radicalism is what a broken system needs
Too much of our political class has become timid or borderline corrupt. It’s time to redistribute power and abolish the…
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How radical will Keir Starmer be on constitutional reform?
It remains to be seen how many of Gordon Brown's 40 recommendations the party leader embraces.
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Labour’s manipulation of selection contests reveals its emptiness of purpose
Keir Starmer’s party is fast becoming a desiccated calculating machine that offers nothing but a small target.
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Labour’s landslide in Chester shows voters have an appetite for change
The party’s impressive by-election result suggests a risk-averse strategy from Keir Starmer now would be a mistake.
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PMQs: Rishi Sunak on the ropes over tax breaks for private schools
Keir Starmer forced the Prime Minister to defend the charitable status of schools such as Winchester College, which charges £45,000…
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Letter of the week: Transatlantic cousins
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Andy Burnham burnishes his brand on Labour’s left
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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How long can Rishi Sunak hold on to No 10?
Divided parties don’t win elections – and, as Sunak is discovering, they cannot effectively govern either.
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Keir Starmer’s mildly authoritarian streak chimes perfectly with these troubled times
Unlike the right, the left is comfortable using state power – and government intervention is exactly what Britain needs.
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Why the Daily Mail’s defence of private schools doesn’t add up
Removing charitable status from private schools won’t lose Labour money – or voters.
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Is David Miliband planning a political comeback?
Keir Starmer might not be able to afford to have such an explicitly pro-EU figure in his top team.
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Rishi Sunak needs more than a good tone to beat Labour
The government has made the right noises on Europe and strikes, but that won’t hide it’s lack of substance for…
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What the hysteria over migration figures misses
The Tory party and Labour are caught in a panic – but immigrants are the bedrock of our economy and…
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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have capitulated to the Brexit zealots
The public now believes that the UK was wrong to leave the EU – but the Conservatives and Labour are…
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A low-tax Labour Party would destroy the Conservatives
Keir Starmer’s plan to cut taxes leaves the Tories with nowhere to go.
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PMQs: The SNP’s defiant Ian Blackford takes centre stage
“The very idea that the United Kingdom is a voluntary union of nations is now dead and buried,” cried the…
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Keeping quiet on Brexit is a shrewd move for Labour now, but a strategic disaster in the long term
What is the opposition’s thinking about Britain’s place in the world?
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