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The secret Keir Starmer refuses to share | LBC
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Jul 3, 2025
Tom Baldwin is the biographer of Keir Starmer who has been meeting with the PM for three years. Joining James O'Brien on LBC, he shared the 'tragedy' and 'cauldron of emotion' that is within Keir Starmer, but that he refuses to share with the public. From a disabled mother to a brother who died of cancer, Baldwin shares with James the 'tension' that maintains a grip over the PM's life, but that also 'makes him the person he is'. Labour is facing fresh questions over the possibility of tax rises in the autumn after concessions to the party's welfare rebels left a £4.8 billion hole in Rachel Reeves's spending plans. The chancellor now faces a fiscal headache as the forecast £4.8 billion in welfare savings have been whittled away to nothing - making the prospect of autumn Budget tax rises look more likely. The concessions, including the last-minute shelving of plans to restrict eligibility for personal independence payments (Pip), were enough to head off the Government's first Commons defeat on Tuesday evening. But they also removed a key plank of Sir Keir Starmer's welfare reform agenda, delaying changes to Pip until after a review of the benefit not due to conclude until autumn 2026. Pat McFadden told LBC this morning that there would be “financial costs” as a result of the welfare cuts. Describing the impact of Pip concessions on the Treasury, Mr McFadden said:” There's definitely a financial cost...that will all be set out at the Budget. “That's one moving part of the public spending picture. There are 100 moving parts to the public spending picture. But the decision to go at slower pace on changes to Pip does have a financial cost".
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0:00
What did you come away most surprised by from this conversation
0:03
given how many you've had with him previously? I think he's very reflective of how things have gone
0:09
And that's one of the things I like about him. Yeah, there are some politicians, we all know who we're talking about
0:16
go, no, I'm absolutely right about everything. I've got my big vision
0:21
I know the answer to every problem. Here it is. And Keir Stammer's not like that
0:26
He is very iterative. And if things don't go well, it goes, well, why didn't that work
0:33
Is there something else we can do? And you'll try different things until you find something that works
0:38
And that's not kind of what journalists always want. It's not what the whole political industry want
0:45
They always want the next new comma, big comma idea, but might actually be the best way to get solutions
0:52
If you think of how he's operating internationally, you don't go storming into the White House and go, here's my vision for peace
0:58
because how do we make this really difficult situation a bit better? I think you need to apply that to the domestic front too
1:03
because it is really difficult. There isn't a lot of money around. Public services are failing
1:08
The public itself is cynical. Public finances are rubbish. And in that situation
1:14
you want someone who's just going to try and work out how to make this a bit better and get some progress
1:18
rather than pretend they can solve everything all at once. It would have been a slightly different piece
1:22
if you were publishing it this Sunday, given the events of yesterday. It was messy
1:26
it's really really messy and there's like no you're surprised by it uh i thought the concessions
1:32
they made the previous week would be enough um i think quite clearly
1:36
you know there's an accumulation of small slights i think that that a lot of mps feel
1:43
completely detached from downing street and very remote from decisions and i think this was a sort
1:49
of this was more than just about it's about more than just the bill it was a it was a it was a it
1:55
It was people sort of expressing sort of anger about quite a lot of what's happened over the last year
2:01
and how they feel they've been treated. But I don't think, I mean, like, you know, I'm the eternal optimist
2:06
but, you know, Pat McFadden was out this morning talking about, you know
2:13
both he and I are old enough to remember in 97 when it was a very similar rebellion
2:16
47 MPs voting against Tony Blair on welfare reform. More than 100 abstained of ministerial resignations
2:22
I was a journalist at the time and I was doing the hyperpolic coverage
2:27
is Blair finished, is this, you know, and of course he wasn't. And that Labour government went on to take 500,000 children out of poverty
2:34
millions back to work, and provide hope to the poorest in the country
2:38
And I think, you know, sometimes these moments remind Labour governments about what they're about and what they're elected to do
2:46
rather than, you know, posturing strength and fetishising toughness. Well, not just Labour governments
2:52
We were reflecting upon Henry Campbell Bannerman in 1906 earlier. Oh, you are
2:58
And similar experiences also. How often do we start a conversation? We speak of little else on this programme, Tom
3:04
We speak of little else, but they won a landslide victory against a Conservative Party best described as bewildered
3:10
and then didn't come out of the blocks firing on all cylinders. But we've got several things, including free school dinners
3:16
appropriately enough, as a consequence of the agenda they put together subsequently
3:20
So what I haven picked up on from you as a staunch supporter of Keir Starmer and an old pal or from Keir Starmer public appearances is any sense at all of panic Look he got quite large reserves of resilience I think
3:37
I think he doesn't always show his emotion. I think when he was growing up, he learnt to suppress his emotion
3:44
But I think he's got quite a lot there. I think he's got quite deep values. And I think one of the frustrations that a lot of people, including some of his advisors, have about him
3:53
is that he doesn't connect what he's doing in politics to those values
3:58
They're not like an ideology. They're just very recognisable British values. But yeah, his mum was disabled when he was growing up
4:05
He grew up, a large part of his child was dominated by his mother's pain. His brother was disabled
4:11
A large part of his adult life has been dominated by that narrative, I think, about the siblings he left behind
4:17
But he doesn't talk about that when he talks about disability benefit reforms. it just sounds like a sort of number crunching thing so how can you bring that actually quite
4:26
cauldron of emotion that i think is inside kirstana a bit more out so people can actually
4:32
see the values which i think that's the way to you know at the moment there's lots of really good
4:37
policy the government's doing lots of good things the government are doing long-term measures for investment and infrastructure and training all these things but what's what what we can't join
4:45
dots up or those bullet points up into a picture without some
4:49
values to connect them, I think. And is no one on the payroll telling him
4:53
this? I'm sure people on the payroll telling him because he's got lots of people on his payroll. Yeah, the right people there
4:59
Oh, look, look, James, I have been an advisor. I know. And a journalist. And a journalist and
5:05
other things. And, yeah, regrets. Look, I know how hard it is
5:11
on the pitch when you're sliding around in the mud and I know how annoying it is
5:15
when someone's sitting up in a stand saying, oh, you know, you should be doing that. So I don't criticise advisers if at all possible
5:21
because I know how tough a job it is. And I think it's a particularly tough job with Keir in a way
5:25
because he doesn't sort of come in and lay out his values on a plate
5:32
for you then to sort of cut and paste into a speech. It's more complicated
5:37
But politics and life are actually complicated. The solutions and the problems for our country are complicated
5:43
and we've got to complicate it, Prime Minister, I wish that complexity and nuance could be seen a bit more
5:50
because I think that actually looks like Britain rather than these simple, straight-lined big ideas
5:55
And that provides a little bit of context to what was, for me at least, by far the most moving vignette in your recent piece
6:01
The Private Trials of Care, Starmer for the Observer, which involves the passing of the younger brother you've just referred to
6:08
Nick, who died on Boxing Day, and Starmer's decision to, I think the day after that he'd been taking calls, in his own words
6:18
on the future of European security to go to Leeds and personally clean out the flat
6:24
How did that come about? Did he volunteer that information to you? Did you ask for it
6:29
Is this part of a conscious decision to try to show some of the stuff that you've said he should be showing
6:33
Just talk me through that process. It came about because I knew about Nick. I knew that Nick had cancer when I was writing the book
6:40
and Kirsten asked me to keep that out because he didn't want to disrespect him
6:44
He didn't want to play that in. Now, that's an act of integrity and authenticity
6:49
which people don't see. They just think, well, he doesn't know anything about real life
6:53
In fact he got this big bit of real life and he not telling you about it And there were lots of other things about Nick too including the fact he had a more or less nomadic existence for a few years and then finally when keir parents died got some money to buy his house in leeds and he finally settled down
7:08
the house and then he found out he got terminal cancer and keir was going to see him secretly
7:14
over and over again never wanted cameras there didn't want to use his brother as a prop and i
7:19
I think you contrast it with some other politicians. He's not the only politician who's had family tragedy
7:25
but they played that out in public. There'd be daily, weekly updates in the Daily Mail or something
7:30
about tragic this or tragic that. And that's their choice. But Kidd doesn't do that
7:36
And he told me about going up to see his brother's flat after he died
7:41
when it happened, and again, I didn't write about it then. I asked about it when I saw him just recently
7:46
I said, look, can I put that on the record? and he's sort of, yeah, all right, it's been a bit of a time
7:52
But it's not being used as a PR exercise. So you prized it out of him
7:57
I prized it out of him over three years of talking to him
8:02
And the actual episode is quite extraordinary. It is. I mean, he's on his hands and knees scrubbing the back of a toilet
8:09
going around the flat with back bin liners, leaving his security outside to pick up his dirty clothes on the floor
8:13
and put them in a bag. And then he sort of almost starts crying. He's saying he's putting what's left of his brother's life in a black bin bag
8:20
And it's very emotional, and it's real, in a way that I think a lot of politicians actually aren't real when they're off camera
8:28
And you don't say, but it occurred to me that part of his motivation, because he wanted to protect his brother
8:32
I didn't want to let him down, he said, I didn't want anyone else there, was because, in his own words, he hadn't kept the place very clean
8:40
and he would have had no control over who might have taken photographs, even
8:44
I think that's it. And we live in a world, sadly, where we could both name 10 men who would print them in a heartbeat
8:50
But he's always been very protective of Nick. I mean, Nick had difficulties learning when he was growing up
8:54
He was teased at school. And a young kid, we came to fights if he heard Nick being called names
8:59
We took a call last year from someone who'd been at school with him. Been in a fight
9:03
And said, I don't really remember him from school, but I remember, like, gathering around a fight
9:09
and he said, and I'm not a fan of him politically, but, goodness me, I wouldn't want to be punched by him
9:14
he was really laying into someone, and it occurred to me reading this article that that someone had probably insulted his brother
9:20
I think that was... I mean, you still don't say the words thick or stupid
9:24
in the Prime Minister's presence. You don't, because he's heard those names too often directed at his brother
9:28
So, I think, but the differences between that youthful Keir Starmer, who everyone said was a bit of a sort of rebel without a cause
9:37
is he'd learnt to control himself and button himself up. Possibly too much
9:41
Possibly, although, if you're sitting in the Oval Office is being goaded by J.D. Vance
9:46
it's not a bad idea to be able to suppress your emotions. You certainly shouldn't be punching him
9:52
Final question, and I'll read back a bit of the piece. For someone who claims he doesn't do self-ysis
9:56
that's pretty insightful, and in the end, this sharp division between his public role and private self
10:01
is not only about protecting his family, I suspect the tension in him
10:05
is also the source of the relentless, often ruthless drive and determination that most people do not see
10:10
What is that tension? Just talk us through what that tension is. It's the tension between the public and the private
10:15
It's the tension with, you know, why he wants to protect his brother, why he gets really angry when his wife is dragged into the row about free clothes
10:23
why he er It quite old like I mean he almost lives in a world where you can keep those separate and yet he determined to do so when they set fire to his old house the front door
10:34
that front door had huge symbolic import to him he used to talk about it
10:38
I go through that door, it's real life again I'm just dad, I can put projects behind me
10:42
he wouldn't let people from projects inside that front door and they set fire to the door
10:47
can you imagine what that does I mean it's, you know that's the sort of portal point between his real life
10:52
and his new life in politics. So he does get really... When you see that intensity
10:59
is when you see that tension between the public and the private. But I personally think
11:04
he actually needs that tension. You can't just... If he just sort of slopped it all out
11:10
he wouldn't be the person he is. What's driven him on? What's driven him from a pretty rough
11:16
working-class background through university, through the upper echelons of law, through politics like a hot knife through butter frankly is that tension that tension is dynamic
11:27
and people see this rather sort of bland public figure behind the glasses but there is a huge
11:35
amount of relentlessness and resilience and determination in in that man which comes from
11:42
that tension i think that drive he said when he was doing the immigration press conference
11:47
after the house being firebombed. And I could see something was up with him
11:52
He was doing this thing of shutting his eyes and saying, we just have to get through this. And he told me he was thinking about his mum
11:58
who was always in pain, getting dressed was painful, and she got on and did it
12:03
Now that, I think, is what he needs to draw on now, because this is a really tough time
12:07
It's a really painful time for everyone associated with this government. But you've got to get on and move on and do it
12:15
And the other big scoop in the piece, of course, was his regret over using that phrase
12:19
island of strangers. Yeah, and I think he really wanted that to be in the piece
12:25
I double-checked with him. Yeah. Because it's the exception to the rule
12:30
Why didn't he come out sooner and say so? Why didn't I... Because, I mean, it's a good piece
12:35
and it's received traction, as you'd expect, but you'd have thought he could have done that the day after
12:40
He could have put his hands up and said, I had no idea that I was... and unintentionally echoing Enoch Blum in Powell
12:46
obviously that was not my intention. He let it lie. Yeah, I mean, I don't know the exact events
12:52
but it seemed that a lot of people are out sort of saying they go stand by every word quite quickly
12:56
Yes. And, you know, he's always... I don't think he'd have time to step back
13:02
and do a sort of reflective conversation. I mean, every 15 minutes of his day is blocked out
13:07
So I don't know the answer to that. I think he probably should have come out and said it earlier
13:12
but I'm glad he said it now. It's an important thing to say. If it's not him, if he didn't believe in those words
13:18
and there are lots of mitigating circumstances why he hadn't read Freud improperly, then he should say, it's not me
13:23
rather than have them hung around his neck forever. And he explains in the piece, which is available online
13:29
what exactly he was trying to convey when he found himself using that unfortunate phraseology
13:35
The very imaginatively titled Kirstammer, The Biography, is out in paperback at the end of the book
13:41
It does what it says on the tin. It does do what it says on the tin. Tom Baldwin is the author of said biography
13:47
End of this month. Sorry, what, the end of June? No, end of July. End of July
13:52
But you can pre-order it now. There you go. Quite a lot of people are doing stuff to observe a piece of things. Many thanks
13:57
Always good to catch up. Thank you
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