I listened to this on Spotify. I started before he actually became Prime Minister, but just got around to finishing it now. On election night, I stayed up most of the night, going to bed as Labour hit the 326 total to become a majority and Jacob Rees-Mogg lost his seat.
It seems Starmer isn’t a natural politician in the sense of selling a story, campaigning, and making big speeches. I’ve thought for a while, though, that he seems like he might actually have exactly the right skills and experience to run the country and actually improve people’s lives, which is a very different thing.
It feels like the approach of this incoming Labour government might actually be quite different from all the others in my lifetime, but people maybe aren’t seeing it because they’re so used to the categories. People on the left have been saying that it’s Blairism because they’re working with business or center-right because of the fiscal rules of Rachel Reeves, but then on the right, there is panic about the increase in workers’ rights, adding VAT to private school fees, and changing the planning system to allow more building.
The government has to be better than what we’ve had for the last several years, but I’m cautiously optimistic that things might start to improve again.
The book itself is pretty good. It can’t be easy writing a biography about a man that’s clearly somewhat cagey about sharing his private life. It details his distant relationship with his dad, his working-class upbringing, his work as a human rights lawyer, running the CPS, and coming to politics late. The last chapter gave me hope as it was describing how they were planning to do exactly what has happened since they won.