Who is Sir Keir Starmer, 'General Indecision' and winner of the British elections?

Keir Starmer is the new name in British politics. The Labour Party leader emerged as the clear winner of Thursday's election, cutting the Conservative hegemony after 14 years.

A native of Southwark, England, he climbed his way to the top of national politics at 61. The second of four children, he repeats that he grew up in a working class family. There was no money to spare. His father was, in addition to being a toolmaker, a sympathizer of the Labor Party. His mother, a nurse.

A lawyer by training, he militated the ideas of Trotskyism during his university years. Before being appointed Attorney General in 2008, he defended pro bono death row inmates in Caribbean countries and was a Human Rights advisor to the Police in Northern Ireland.

Starmer entered politics unusually late: at 51, convinced by a neighbor and friend, as he recounts. "I had a sense that to fix problems you had to pull levers only politicians could do," he would later explain to his biographer in words collected by The Telegraph. At 52 he held his first elected office when he was elected to Parliament in 2015.

Following the Brexit referendum that gave victory to the leave, he went so far as to call for a second appointment to the polls to reverse the result. The subsequent defeat of his party in 2019 served for him to replace the then leader Jeremy Corbyn, with whom he climbed the rungs within the party.

Since he took the reins of the Labour formation in 2020, Starmer would have turned the formation towards the center. A shift that, according to analysts, added to the wear and tear of the Conservative Party and the erratic campaign of the outgoing premier, was key in the electoral victory.

"I’ve changed the Labour Party. If you put your trust in me by voting Labour, I will change the country."Keir Starmer during the election campaign.

Likewise, far from promoting a defined program, his great promise was a return to normality. As part of his transformation of the party, those close to him point out that he removed the radical left and anti-Semites. One of those expelled was Corbyn himself, who this election won back his seat as an independent.

'General Indecision' and 'Sir Softie'

One of the most frequent criticisms is his apparent lack of charisma, which he showed especially in the debates. Conservatives accuse him of lacking initiative; when prime minister, Boris Johnson called him "Captain Hindsight," alluding to his being "opportunistic and reactive," as Nottingham Trent University professor Christopher Pich explains. "His brand, in Johnson’s framing, is to put forward alternatives only after the fact."

He was later renamed "General Indecision." In that tune Rishi Sunak would call him then "Inaction Man," as well as "Sir Softie."

However, Starmer himself may have profited from these attacks. According to Pich, first, because his role in the opposition consisted less of proposing and more of analyzing and criticizing. Secondly, because the image of a bored man might have served as a contrast to the ruling party -especially in comparison with Partygate-. The politician himself encrypted this change of style in a phrase-promise: "Getting the boring stuff right."

An Arsenal fan, he has lived in Holborn and St Pancras, London, for more than 20 years. In this week's election he again won the seat in this parliamentary constituency, but will have to relocate. His new destination, along with his wife, Victoria Alexander and their two children is 10 Downing Street.