Labour insiders have despaired at Keir Starmer‘s dithering over decisions and remarked at his ‘oddly passive premiership’ in an explosive new book extract.
An updated account of Sir Keir’s leadership of Labour, titled ‘Get In – The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer’, divulges details of his first few months as Prime Minister.
The book – authored by political journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund – outlines how the Government came to initially axe winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.
It also describes the discussions between ministers over taking control of British Steel’s plant in Scunthorpe, and how Sir Keir backed down to rebel Labour MPs on welfare reform.
The updated book details how, in his first weeks in power, Sir Keir would read for hours in his No10 study but then ‘said nothing’.
‘It’s just so odd,’ a senior official told the authors, in an extract published by The Sunday Times. ‘It’s a very oddly passive premiership.’
One adviser said those who previously worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown ‘would have known exactly’ the views of the former Labour PMs.
‘None of us could say the same about Keir,’ they added. ‘It wasn’t just that we didn’t know what he would say. We didn’t know whether he would have said anything.’
Labour insiders have despaired at Keir Starmer’s dithering over decisions and remarked at his ‘oddly passive premiership’ in an explosive new book extract
Join the debate
Do YOU think Starmer appears too cautious as PM?
Jonathan Reynolds, the then-business secretary, is said to have ‘snapped’ at Sir Keir during a ‘circular discussion’ about the future of British Steel in April last year.
‘We have to decide whether we’re going to let British Steel go down or not,’ he is said to have urged the PM.
It is also claimed that Sir Keir only discovered that train drivers had been given a new pay deal by then-transport secretary Louise Haigh until after it had been agreed.
In further withering criticism of the PM, one former Downing Street aide told the authors that Sir Keir is ‘the least intellectually curious person I have ever met’.
Another source said: ‘He can only prepare by reading briefing books for hours on end. He doesn’t brainstorm.
‘He has no fixed views on anything. There’s no clarity because there’s no belief.
‘There’s no belief because there’s no understanding. There’s no understanding because there’s no curiosity.’
The updated book also explores the relationship between Sir Keir and Morgan McSweeney, who was his No10 chief of staff until last month.
A colleague of both men said: ‘It’s definitely not a relationship where the chief of staff is the voice and the eyes and the ears of their principal.
‘The room where decisions are taken doesn’t exist. You would think that it was a deliberate thing, that Keir thrives in chaos. But it’s not, and he doesn’t. It’s very, very strange.’
The explosive claims will fuel further questions about how long Sir Keir might last in Downing Street, amid Labour’s dire poll ratings and after the Peter Mandelson scandal rocked his premiership.
It is widely expected the PM could face a leadership challenge after May’s elections in Scotland, Wales and English councils, should Labour suffer dismal results.
No10 did not comment on the book extract.
