Will Keir Starmer ever learn to loosen up?

Tom Baldwin declares at the outset: ‘It’s only fair to warn those hoping to find these pages spattered with blood that they will be disappointed.’ Fair enough. This is not an authorised biography, but it is a friendly one, written with Keir Starmer’s co-operation. Baldwin briefly worked as Labour’s communications director, and then was asked to help Starmer with his autobiography. They did several interviews, but Starmer always had reservations and finally pulled the plug last spring. Instead, he agreed that Baldwin could write this book, using some of the material he had already gathered, and that he would assist him with contacts.

Starmer is always reluctant to talk about his childhood but Baldwin has winkled out a lot. Both his parents sound remarkable. Jo, his mother, was a cheerful soul even though she had been diagnosed with Still’s disease – a particularly severe form of rheumatoid arthritis – when she was ten and told that she would not be able to walk or have children. She not only walked; she climbed the Lake District fells and had four children (Anna, Keir and the twins Katy and Nick) within four years of marriage. While Keir was growing up she was often hospitalised, and he remembers when he was 13 his father ringing from the hospital and saying Jo was not expected to pull through. But she did, and died only nine years ago, just before Starmer became an MP.

Rod, his father, was devoted to Jo but not particularly affectionate to his children. He never praised Keir, who was surprised to learn after Rod’s death that he had kept a secret album of press cuttings about him. A dour, taciturn man who worked all day as a toolmaker, came home for tea and then worked some more, he demanded silence at mealtimes so that he could read his paper.