AMA with Tom Baldwin: author of "Keir Starmer: The Biography" - the Sunday Times bestselling biography of the Labour Leader

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

Hi there,

We're pleased to announce that with just a few days to go until the General Election, Tom Baldwin, former Labour advisor and author of "Keir Starmer: The Biography" - the Sunday Times bestselling biography of the Labour Leader will be joining us for an AMA on Sunday evening.

Tom's biography of the man who looks set to be the next Prime Minister has been described as "the first serious and consistently readable biography of Starmer" (Patrick Maguire, the Times) and "absolutely riveting and very timely" (Amol Rajan). You can join him live on this thread from 7.30pm on Sunday, or post your questions in advance below.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Well, Starmer would say comes from a village in Surrey and is not "North London" in a lot of his attitudes while Ed Miliband would point he represents Doncaster North. You're right they both live, along with Jeremy Corbyn, in one corner of London which is very Labour. But they're very different people.

Not coming from within politics has allowed him to move fast to change the party

Rather than drive straight lines through the people of this country, he seems to recognise that ambiguity and nuance are opportunities for progress rather than things that need to be ironed flat.

Which version of Keir are we going with?

I don't know. But Labour is worried about turnout or people buying the Tory line that it's all done and dusted. Labour usually does a bit worse than the polls suggest. Hence the closing message this weekend that the only way to get rid of the Tories in four fifths of the constituencies being contested is not to rely on everyone else to vote Labour but to do it yourself.

Spot on with the ambiguity over women's rights.

Have you asked him whether large donations from people like Antony Watson affect his policies?

Both he and his wife, Vic, seem pretty determined to carry on doing so. They also know the pressure on them and their children will get more intense. He says it's the one thing he loses sleep over.

It will definitely get reformed with abolition of remaining hereditary peers and new ways to hold individuals to account. Getting rid of it entirely, however, might use up half the energy of a new government and might not make much difference to many people's lives. Won't happen soon is my best guess.

Thank you. Great answer!

Why does Kier see hereditary peers as so bad? They can often be the voice of reason and without axe to grind.

Don't know the answer to that, I'm afraid. From the outside, it seems this relationship is being conducted in the media which is never usually the most productive kind of dialogue for anyone.

Yeah, he's said as much to me too. It does mean that when he does trust people, he really trust them and there's a tight circle of very old friends around him who've passed that test. I think he's probably recognised two things:

1. He needs to learn to trust people a bit more in politics.
2. People in politics are not very trustworthy.

He could conduct in private. There's a thought!

Do you think deep down Keir's a socialist and will go down that route eventually? Once he's gained a huge majority?I really hope so by the way.

He talks about a "decade of national renewal". The "national" bit is bringing people together. I saw in some roundtable discussion the other day up in Grimsby. A young woman said "politics just seemed like a game". He became quite animated, saying (I haven't got the exact words in front of me) that most normal people don't spend their time worrying about who voted Labour or Tory or whatever but just getting on with their lives. It's why politics seems so disconnected from most of the country. At his best, he might be able to rise above the polarised, shrill and shallow debate of recent years and - instead - make it more serious and worthwhile. Whether the media, the scale of the challenges facing him, or a rising right wing populism allow hm to do so remains to be seen.

Hmmm. Do you think that's really possible?

He's a pragmatic radical. He will do the obvious, straightforward stuff first. If that doesn't work, he will try something else for pragmatic reasons. That's very different to how most political leaders set themselves up - and one of the reasons why journalists addicted to "big radical ideas" don't understand him. But it might yet be a beter way to bring change. After all, that's how he's gone about changing his party.

You can sometimes move faster by going around the side of a hill than digging a straight ideological purity through it.

Ignoring women's genuine questions, answering questions about women's concerns about women's rights with mens rights soundbites and characterising people who debate as shrill is not very productive.
Fyi Mumsnet don't take too kindly to being accused of being hysterical or waffling fudge either.

So I guess my question is how thick do you think we are?

Hi, this has been an interesting discussion and thank you for giving your time. I have to say though that I'm non the clearer about who KS really is as a person. Given his emotional distance, how do you think world leaders will respond to him, if he gets into power?

What do you mean?

All I can say is I've seen get genuinely angry about VAWG - whether that's cases he dealt with as lawyer like Fiona Ivison and Jane Clough or the grooming scandals and Jimmy Savile, or the assault on his own niece just weeks after he same sex wedding. He's visited women's refuges and talked about in ways that most late middle-aged men (yes, I'm one too) can't or don't.

Thinking about one of your other answers @TomBaldwin66, does Kier understand that safeguarding has no "ideological purity" to it, and that unbiased and non-political leadership is required to foster a safeguarding culture?

Also thank you for looking at and replying to my original questions, which I hope you get to here.

I don't think anyone has accused anyone of being hysterical or waffling fudge or being thick.

Does Keir not understand just how frustrating and how much anger this stance and his language is making women? Women ask and talk about women's rights and single sex spaces and he responds by talking about safe spaces not single sex spaces and trans rights. Here's an idea talk about women when asked about women and answer the questions without deflecting onto trans or waffling about previous history.

There’s a very important word missing there which is “some”. Please don’t presume that you speak for all - or even the majority - of women. You don’t.