Keir Starmer has been the leader of the UK Labour Party since 2020. This makes him Leader of the Opposition, and - if the polls are to be believed - Britain's next prime minister.
Amid a revolving door of prime ministers, Brexit, and the pandemic, Starmer’s rise from leader of the weakest Labour Party since the Second World War to being in poll position in the race for Downing Street has taken many by surprise. It’s also left a public clamouring for more information about who this man is, what makes him tick, and what he believes in.
This podcast tries to assess the validity of the conventional wisdoms that have grown up around Starmer. Starmer will face many challenges if he ever becomes prime minister, so it’s important to think about who he is, before the demands of Downing Street swamp him.
My guest today is Tom Baldwin. Tom is a British journalist who has worked for the Times and the Sunday Telegraph as political editor; he was also a senior political adviser to Ed Miliband when Miliband was Labour leader. Tom has also written Keir Starmer: The Biography, an unauthorised but authoritative account of the man himself. More recently than that he has also co-authored England: Seven Myths That Changed a Country and How to Set Them Straight.
EP127: Sadyr Japarov
EP126: Jean-Bertrand Aristide
EP124: Afonso Dhlakama
EP123: J.R. Jayewardene
EP122: The Houthis (Part 2)
EP121: The Houthis (Part 1)
EP120: Jens Stoltenberg
EP119: John Magufuli
EP118: Mary Lou McDonald
EP117: Nayib Bukele
EP116: Hezbollah
EP115: Kim Yo Jong
EP114: Hafiz al-Assad
EP113: Alex Salmond
EP112: Islam Karimov
EP111: Geert Wilders
EP110: Hun Sen
EP109: Vytautas Landsbergis
EP108: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Everything Everywhere Daily