The private trials of Keir Starmer

Tom Baldwin

The prime minister reveals the quiet grief and inner determination of his first year in office – and why he ‘deeply regrets’ his ‘island of strangers’ speech

Keir Starmer can be as impenetrable as the front door behind which he now lives. This is made of reinforced steel, has a sealed letterbox, and neither a handle nor a key to open it from the outside. Both he and the famous entrance to 10 Downing Street are, however, unlocked from within.

We are sitting in his study upstairs in Downing Street. He prefers it here because there’s more sunlight and it is “a bit more out the way” than his darker office in the day-to-day tumult of government on the ground floor below.