Keir Starmer: Key revelations from the new biography of the Labour chief, his wife and politics

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A biography has shed new gentle on Keir Starmer’s rise from working-class roots in Surrey to knocking on the door of No 10 as Labour chief.

The Tom Baldwin biography gives never-before-seen particulars into the lawyer turned politician’s life, together with the “very tough life” of his beloved brother Nick, his frustration with Jeremy Corbyn, a quick dalliance with Trotskyism, and his lifelong obsession with Arsenal soccer membership.

Here The Independent recaps the key revelations from Keir Starmer: The Biography

His mom had a extreme lifelong sickness

Starmer’s mom was struggled with sickness most of her life, being recognized with Still’s illness at solely ten-years-old. This is a uncommon inflammatory arthritis which induced her persistent issue. She was instructed she can be in a wheelchair by her twenties, and that it might be inconceivable to ever have youngsters.

An experimental cortisone therapy helped her to beat the odds, and she went on to have 4 youngsters. Starmer recounts how the youngsters would usually want to attend for her to catch up, or how she would generally fall over and be unable to get again up.

By her late-thirties, Starmer’s mom needed to be admitted to hospital. Her remedy “had made her skin tissue-paper thin and her bones crumbly like Weetabix – they stopped her body from healing itself,’ he says.

“Whenever I’m faced with a problem or a challenge,” he says, ‘I think of her and walk towards it”

“Some of the tougher things I have to do just pale into insignificance”.

Starmer was teased for being a “macho man” at Oxford

Starmer joined the Oxford University Labour Club in his time at the university, at a time when hard left politics were popular on campus. There is one reference to him the the Labour Club’s scholar newspaper: ‘I am not one to deny the existence of macho politics. Now just look at Keir – “I am not macho and this is not a Talking Heads jacket so just shut your bloody mouth – Starmer.”’

His college peer and nonetheless shut pal Alex Harvey describes experiencing Starmer’s longstanding hard-work mentality on a vacation in France: “As soon as he arrived, Keir went off for a five-mile run in the searing heat, then staggered back when everyone else was sitting around.”

“It was like he had to almost destroy himself before he could chill out.”

He thought-about resigning usually below Corbyn

Starmer’s fractious relationship with earlier Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn is now well-documented. However throughout Mr Corbyn’s tenure, it was a way more intently guarded secret.

Biographer Tom Baldwin means that allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party weighed heavy on the new chief’s thoughts. Starmer says he received to a degree the place he thought-about leaving repeatedly: “I did question myself the whole time about whether I should stay on or leave. But I thought, on balance, it’s better to fight it from the inside.”

He shared an affordable flat above a brothel

When Keir Starmer first moved to London, he lived in a rundown flat in the north of the metropolis. Starmer and his mates lived a low-cost bohemian life-style of low cost drinks, burning furnishings to remain heat – and as soon as discovering a useless pigeon in the water tank.

“The flat was really grotty,” he says, “but it was cheap, you know I was with mates, we were young and having a good time”.

Below the flat operated a sauna and therapeutic massage parlour, the landlord having been jailed the 12 months prior for getting cash from prostitution.

Fiercely protecting of his siblings and Nick’s “very tough” life

Keir Starmer is the center little one of 4 siblings: two sisters and a brother. His youthful siblings, Katy and Nick are twins, whereas he has one older sister, Ana. They all grew up collectively, in a home of six, with their mother and father.

‘I shared a bunk bed with my brother in a room with an airing cupboard and just enough space for a couple of small desks where we’d do our homework,’ Starmer says.

His youthful brother Nick has studying difficulties because of problems at start. Starmer has spoken candidly for the first time about his relationship in the new biography: “We were a family of six, so it didn’t feel lonely and I shared a room with him, but Nick didn’t have many friends and got called ‘thick’ or ‘stupid’ by other kids.’

“Even now I try to avoid using words like that to describe anyone”.

He has seen mates and household expertise homophobic assaults

In 2020, Starmer attended the same-sex wedding ceremony of his niece Jess in 2022. Six weeks later, they have been topic to a homophobic assault.

“They were hand in hand like the newlyweds they are when three men came up to them,” Starmer says, “these cowards punched Jess many times, fracturing her cheekbone, for no reason except she’s a lesbian.”

Baldwin recounts Starmer’s “cold fury”, and how he threw his telephone throughout a desk to point out the photographs, displaying “emotion you rarely see in public”.

Earlier in his life, as a teen, Starmer and his mates have been crushed up in a nightclub after attempting to defend a pal who was attacked for being homosexual.

“Graham didn’t do much to conceal that he was gay,” remembers Starmer, “and some of the local kids decided the way to prove they weren’t gay too was by punching and kicking him. Mark and I got involved, so all three of us ended up getting beaten up.”

Football is a significant half of his life

Starmer has made no secret of his love of soccer, identified for taking part in five-a-side each Sunday in his constituency. This new bioraphy addresses his ardour in new element. Starmer describes the feeling of watching a last-minute successful objective in a stadium:

“Everyone stands up, hands in the air,” he as soon as mentioned, “like there’s a magnet in the sky above the stadium.”

His college pal Mark Adams describes how real his love of the sport is: “If most politicians try to invent a love of football to make themselves appear more normal, Keir probably needs to downplay the football side of things because he really is pretty obsessive about it all.”

He has nearly resigned as Labour chief twice

Starmer’s first near-resignation got here in April 2021, following Labour’s notorious ‘Beergate’ scandal. After revelations that he and Deputy Leader Angela Rayner could have attended an occasion in Durham that was in-breach of Covid-19 lockdown guidelines.

The Labour chief vowed to step down, desirous to keep away from expenses of hypocrisy after slamming Boris Johnson for his ‘Partygate’ scandal. Starmer mentioned to his wife: “No comebacks, no hanging around in Parliament like a bad smell – I’ll do something else with my life”.

The Labour chief and Rayner have been subsequently cleared of wrongdoing by the police. However, this was solely the first time Starmer has practically walked.

The second got here later that 12 months, when Labour misplaced the May 2021 Hartlepool by-election below Starmer’s watch, the new chief skilled a significant confidence disaster and thought-about resignation. ‘I felt like I had been kicked in the guts,’ Starmer says, ‘the result was terrible and I had a moment where I thought we are not going to be able to do this.’

Baldwin recounts how Starmer made many calls to his wife and even to his former authorized colleagues at Doughty Street Chambers. Former workmate Ed Fitzgerald remembers saying they’d at all times welcome him again “if he was finding it all too tough”.

Nevertheless, Starmer remained – and has since gone on to realize seven seats at by-elections over the previous few years.