Tories would have made Keir Starmer DPP for another five years but he refused

Sign up for the View from Westminster e-mail for professional evaluation straight to your inbox

Get our free View from Westminster e-mail

The Conservatives would have reappointed Sir Keir Starmer as director of public prosecutions (DPP) for an additional five years – but the long run Labour chief wished to change into an MP as a substitute, in response to a brand new biography.

In a revelation which seems to fly within the face of Tory assaults on Sir Keir’s file as the pinnacle of the Crown Prosecution Service, a brand new ebook by journalist turned Labour spin physician Tom Baldwin suggests “his term as DPP was judged to be very successful by the Tory government”.

Despite Conservative MPs having sought to controversially assault Sir Keir over the prosecution of grooming gangs, the upcoming new ebook Keir Starmer: The Biography notes that Tory ministers as a substitute had signed off on a cross-party report commending the work Sir Keir had completed on grooming scandals.

The ebook notes that, whereas dwelling secretary, Theresa May took Sir Keir out to dinner to thank him for his service, whereas then-legal professional common Dominic Grieve described the soon-to-be Labour MP as “one of the most successful directors of recent years” at his leaving social gathering.

Although having rebuked Sir Keir firstly of his tenure of DPP for being too political, Mr Grieve – who had the Tory whip eliminated by Boris Johnon after voting towards his Brexit deal – is quoted within the ebook as describing him as “highly effective and someone who always behaved with great integrity”.

While Sir Keir had made clear he would not search a second time period as DPP, Mr Grieve stated: “I would definitely have reappointed him, of course I would. And I don’t think anyone else in government would have had any basis for taking a contrary view.

“For them to turn around now and attempt to muckrake his time as DPP is really infantile behaviour, completely unjustified and just a load of rubbish. It won’t work and I fear attacking public servants in this way will backfire badly on the Conservative Party.”

Since turning into Labour chief, the Tories below Mr Johnson, Rishi Sunak and, maybe to a lesser extent, Liz Truss have sought to assault Sir Keir’s file as DPP – whereas he has as a substitute sought to make use of it to bolster his political credentials as being powerful on crime.

These Tory assaults have seen one in all Mr Johnson’s advisers resign over his failure to challenge an apology over remarks about paedophile Jimmy Savile, which have been criticised by Mr Sunak on the time.

As lately as January, there have been calls for for Sir Keir to apologise for failing to intervene towards personal prosecutions introduced by the Post Office towards subpostmasters in the course of the Horizon scandal, regardless of him not having the facility to take action, in response to the brand new biography.

Within the biography, Sir Keir is quoted as telling Baldwin: “I’m not saying we never made a mistake because, of course, there will be poor decisions in an organisation dealing with hundreds of thousands of cases.

“But I never took one in bad faith. I certainly don’t lie awake at night worrying they will find a file where I said, ‘Don’t prosecute him because he’s my mate or something’ because it just doesn’t exist.”