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From Doughty Street to Downing Street: from human rights barrister in a left-wing chambers to a prime minister tough on rioters and illegal migrants.
Five years after becoming Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer has been on a remarkable journey. He turned left to win the party leadership and turned right to win a general election.
It has been five years of dramatic highs and lows: the elation of winning a landslide general election victory after the gloom of contemplating quitting following a by-election humiliation.
As opposition leader, Sir Keir purged the Labour left, including banishing his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn to the political wilderness, and flushed out the scourge of antisemitism.
As prime minister, within weeks of entering Number 10 he was confronted with riots on Britain’s streets. And throughout his premiership he has had to play a leading role internationally in a volatile and war-torn world.
At home, his government’s economic policies have been condemned by political opponents and some of his own MPs as a return to austerity. Labour’s opinion poll ratings have nose-dived.
Abroad, as well as the challenge of defending Ukraine against the brutality of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the so-called “special relationship” with the United States has been tested to the limit by the erratic Donald Trump.
Five-year Keir was elected Labour leader on 4 April 2020, just weeks after prime minister Boris Johnson ordered a COVID lockdown that was ultimately to bring about his demise.
Sir Keir won 56% of the vote, defeating the Corbyn-backed left-wing candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy from Labour’s soft left.
To win the backing of left-wing Labour activists, he backed a wealth tax on the top 5% of earners, abolishing university tuition fees, nationalising water and energy and restoring freedom…
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