Starmer has come long way from anti-capitalism of his youth

Keir Starmer was a bit of a lettie in his youth. This much is known, and two biographies of the Labour leader published over the summer provide some detail of his anti-capitalist writing for magazines called Socialist Alternatives and Socialist Lawyer in the Eighties and Nineties.

- John Rentoul

Anyone who hasn’t railed embarrassingly against the unfairness of the world in their 20s and early 30s doesn’t have a heart, but what do these two books tell us about our possible future prime minister?

To begin with, neither book looks promising, because Starmer refused to have anything to do with them. One, Red Knight, by Michael Ashcroft, proudly advertises that it is The Unauthorised Biography. It is hardly surprising that Starmer told friends he “would rather they did not participate in it”. Ashcroft, the former Conservative peer and ex-deputy chair of the party, also co-wrote a hostile biography of David Cameron, Call Me Dave, which seemed to be a continuation of a feud between himself and the prime minister, so you can see why Starmer might be wary.