Draft:Keir Starmer: The Biography



Keir Starmer: The Biography is a 2024 book by British journalist and political adviser Tom Baldwin. It is a political biography of British opposition and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, and follows his time in the Crown Prosecution Service and Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor, covering his political alliances, his victory in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, and subsequent leadership of the Labour Party.

Background
Starmer is a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Labour Party, a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom that acts as the main political opposition to the centre-right Conservative government. He has represented the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in the House of Commons since 2015. He was elected party leader in April 2020, after his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn presided over a landslide defeat in the 2019 general election. His leadership has been characterised by movement towards the political centre and abandonment of much of the left-wing platform of his leadership campaign, as well as by opposition to some of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic and issues such as Partygate, the September 2022 mini-budget, and the cost of living crisis. Starmer has emphasised the importance of eliminating antisemitism in the Labour Party. In 2023, he set out five missions for a Labour government, targeting issues such as economic growth, health, clean energy, crime, and education. Since late 2021, the party has maintained leads in opinion polling over the governing Conservative Party, often by very wide margins.