Saturday, February 08, 2025
New book that undermines Starmer
The Independent reports that Get In, by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund has left the prime minister facing a series of questions over a meeting with his voice coach while the UK was under strict Covid restrictions and details an attempted ‘coup’ by his deputy.
They add that The loss of the Hartlepool by-election in May 2021 came as a blow to the Labour leader, so much so that in its aftermath, he sacked the party chairman, Angela Rayner, triggering a stand-off:
She reportedly went to the pub and turned off her phone.
According to the book, a confident says she was ready to launch a coup against her leader: “We could have taken him out there and then, without a shadow of a doubt. All of the unions were on board. We had Unite. We had the money. Momentum were lined up. We were done. We had a rally of 5,000 people ready to go.”
In the end, Ms Rayner was eventually given not just one new job but three -including shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The book claims Rayner’s doubts over Sir Keir continued, however, and that she also complained she did not know who ran the Labour Party — adding that it could not be its leader, because he could not run a bath.
The paper says that the one story from the book that has caused the most problems for Starmer is when it emerged that former actress Leonie Mellinger, who was his voice coach, was made a ‘key worker’ during the Covid pandemic:
The two met on Christmas Eve to discuss his response to Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal, even though London was under ‘Tier 4’ Covid restrictions at the time. Ms Mellinger later travelled to Brighton, which was under ‘Tier 3’ restrictions, at a time when people were told not to travel between areas. Sir Keir has insisted no rules were broken and since hit back at the Tories saying: “I was working, they were partying.”
The Tories have called for the police to investigate, but on Wednesday they said they would not because too much time had passed.
For me the most damaging revelation is that Morgan McSweeney once questioned his boss’s lack of political nous by saying: “Keir acts like an HR manager, not a leader. What’s the point of circling the wagons if you can’t last?”
They add that another of Sir Keir’s senior advisers in opposition, jokingly referenced London’s driverless Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to say: “Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR.”
How these stories play out in the coming months will need to be seen, but in terms of the idea that Starmer is not up to the job could well haunt him to the next general electiuon.
