Keir Starmer was raised in a cramped terraced house on the outskirts of London.
London:
UK Labor leader Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer turned state prosecutor whose relentless ambition and formidable work ethic appear to propel him to Britain’s highest political office.
The 61-year-old, whose unusual first name was his socialist parents’ homage to Labor Party founder Keir Hardie, is also the center-left party’s hardest-working leader in decades.
“My father was a toolmaker, my mother was a nurse,” Starmer often tells voters, contradicting opponents’ descriptions that the left-wing former lawyer is the epitome of a smug, liberal London elite.
With his gray pompadour and black-rimmed glasses, Starmer remains an enigma in the eyes of many voters, who are likely to hand him the keys to 10 Downing Street in the July 4 general election.
Detractors label him an uninspiring opportunist, but his supporters insist he is a pragmatic manager who will approach the role of prime minister in the same way he approached his legal career: tirelessly and forensically.
“Politics has to be about service,” Starmer said in a campaign speech on Monday, repeating his mantra of putting “country first, party second” after 14 years of Conservative government that brought five prime ministers.
Sometimes appearing uncomfortable in the spotlight, the dorky Arsenal fan – who came to politics late in life – has struggled to shake off his public image as demure and boring.
But the married father of two is said to be funny and loyal in private, while his path to the pinnacle of prime ministership is more interesting than he gives him credit for.
Mother’s death
Born on September 2, 1962, Keir Rodney Starmer was raised in a cramped semi-detached house on the outskirts of London by a seriously ill mother and an emotionally distant father.
He had three brothers, one of whom had learning difficulties, and his parents were animal lovers and rescued donkeys.
“Whenever one of us left the house, they replaced us with a donkey,” Starmer joked.
A talented musician, Starmer took violin lessons at school from Norman Cook, the former Housemartins bassist turned DJ Fatboy Slim, and attended a prestigious London music school at weekends.
After legal studies at Leeds and Oxford universities, Starmer turned his attention to radical causes, defending trade unions, anti-McDonald’s activists and death row inmates abroad.
He has been friends with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney since their time together at the same law firm and once recounted a drunken lunch he had with her and her Hollywood actor husband George.
“There were a lot of empty bottles at the end of the night,” Starmer recalled.
In 2003, he began to approach the system, shocking colleagues and friends, first with work ensuring that the Northern Ireland police complied with human rights legislation.
Five years later, he was appointed director of public prosecutions for England and Wales by the then Labor government.
Between 2008 and 2013, he oversaw the prosecution of MPs for abuse of expenses, journalists for clandestine telephone tapping and young protesters involved in the 2011 riots in England.
He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, but rarely uses the prefix “Sir”, and in 2015 was elected a member of parliament, representing a seat in left-leaning north London.
Just weeks before he was elected, his mother died of a rare joint disease that left her unable to walk for many years.
Rebellion
In 2021, he broke down in tears in a TV interview as he described how her agonizing death “broke” his father.
Just a year after becoming an MP, Starmer joined a rebellion by Labor lawmakers over left-wing Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent lack of leadership during the EU referendum campaign.
He failed, and later that year he returned to the main team as the Labor Party’s Brexit spokesman, where he remained until succeeding Corbyn in April 2020.
Since then, Starmer has shown ruthlessness by purging Corbyn from the party, moving him back to the center and taking steps to root out the antisemitism that made the Labor Party unelectable.
The left accuses him of treason for abandoning a series of promises he made during his successful leadership campaign, including the elimination of university fees.
But his strategic repositioning of Labor to put it back on the path to power is indicative of a constant throughout his life: a drive to succeed.
“If you are born without privilege, you have no time for games,” Starmer once said.
“You don’t work around problems without solving them, and you don’t surrender to the instincts of organizations that don’t face change.”
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
This story originally appeared on Ndtv.com read the full story
