Tom Baldwin’s biography of Sir Keir Starmer shows that the Prime Minister has the leadership ability to implement his left-wing agenda resulting in further restrictions on Christian freedom of expression.
Keir Starmer, The Biography reveals a frontrunner with the capability for the mental exertions required to master the small print of presidency and the moral ability to encourage trust in his followers.
Very arguably, the last Prime Minister to mix those two qualities was Margaret Thatcher until around 1989 when she began to alienate too a lot of her former followers amongst Conservative ministers and MPs.
One anecdote from the biography by the Labour Party’s former communications director who has been a senior journalist on The Sunday Telegraph and The Times stands out for instance of Starmer’s leadership ability. Baldwin records testimony from Starmer’s barrister colleague, Gavin Millar, who shared an office with him once they were tenants within the leftist Doughty Street Chambers in London within the Nineteen Nineties.
Millar recalled an occasion when Starmer was chairman of the chambers’ management committee and was being deluged with complaints from lefty lawyers concerning the “nasty red” chairs and the low cost desks of their offices.
Starmer sent a message to the complete chambers: “I might remind you all that we’re human rights lawyers. We’re here to defend the rights of vulnerable people to (the) better of our ability. We’re not here to be concerned concerning the color of chairs.”
Millar said he heard no more complaints after that. This could appear a trivial incident but what Starmer said then and the best way he said it are the unmistakable marks of a frontrunner.
As a former vicar, I understand how easily a trivial matter, equivalent to the color of the carpet within the church constructing, can obsess a gaggle and spread like a virus. Good leadership as Starmer displayed on this occasion can save a peer group from itself and keep the organisation focussed on its central aim.
Baldwin describes one other example of Starmer’s leadership ability in self-discipline under pressure on the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool in October 2023: “As he began his leader’s speech to a hall filled with almost three thousand people, a person climbed on to the stage, emptied a bag of glitter over him and shouted something about ‘a people’s house’, before being dragged away.”
Baldwin observed that folks watching the news that night would have seen how “the Labour leader stood his ground, locked his hand unyieldingly on that of the protester and stared straight ahead”.
Based on the evidence in Baldwin’s book, published shortly before Labour won its massive General Election victory on July 4, I might suggest that in Keir Starmer the country has an actual leader with the capability to guide it within the direction he believes in. If he succeeds, I think he would lead the country within the flawed direction from a Christian perspective.
In his article for The Spectator in July, ‘Does Keir Starmer’s atheism matter?’, former Catholic Herald editor Dan Hitchens described Starmer’s response to churches that uphold the standard Christian teaching on marriage and sexual ethics:
“Good Friday, 2021, at Jesus House For All Nations church in Brent, north-west London. Face masked, head bowed, hands clasped, Sir Keir Starmer stands alongside Pastor Agu Irukwu. The pastor opens his arms to invoke Almighty God.
“We hear Starmer in voiceover: ‘From rolling out the vaccine to running the local food bank, Jesus House, like many other churches across the UK, has played an important role in meeting the needs of the community.’ A pleasant video tribute for Easter, this. Good to see churches getting some recognition. An indication, perhaps, of the inclusive national unity a Labour government would foster.
“By Easter Monday, Starmer has apologised, deleted the video and kind of vowed never again to darken the door of Pastor Irukwu, who, it has emerged, is an opponent of same-sex marriage. Whoops. Sorry. Didn’t realise it was that sort of church.”
According to Hitchens, Starmer said: “It was a mistake and I accept that.”
The Starmer government’s neo-Marxist assault on free speech flagged up when inside weeks of getting elected when it placed on hold the Conservatives’ Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. This bodes unwell for orthodox Christians. But if the Prime Minister ever thinks back to Communist Eastern Europe as a young socialist within the Nineteen Eighties, he might keep in mind that Christianity has an inclination to conquer Marxism.
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
