Meet 'No-Drama Starmer,' Britain's Likely New PM

Unless British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party pull off an improbably huge comeback in Thursday's election, he is on the verge of being replaced by the country's first PM from the Labour Party in 14 years. Polls show that Sir Keir Starmer is poised to win a landslide victory, less than five years after Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to a huge win. Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer, has led the party since 2020 but, according to NBC News, even many Brits are struggling to pin down his real character.

• Two views: NBC reports that people with views on Starmer tend to fall into two camps: "Supporters say he deftly mixes progressive values with real-world pragmatism; critics argue he is an apolitical shape-shifter who will say whatever's fashionable and necessary to win."

• 'Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest:' The New York Times describes Starmer as "sarnest, intense, practical, and not brimming with charisma" and notes that Johnson once called him "Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest." Starmer, the country's former chief prosecutor, doesn't have the same skill with one-liners, the Times notes, but his "forensic skills" helped expose the former prime minister's lies about parties he held during lockdowns his government ordered.
• Paradoxes: NBC notes that Starmer "has the most blue-collar upbringing of any candidate in a generation," while he is also the first since the 1950s to already have the title Sir after being knighted. But the biggest paradox, according to NBC, is that he appears to be about to win a landslide while much of the country is "lukewarm" about him.
• 'No-drama Starmer:' Labour insiders say Starmer is ready to start running the country Friday morning—but people shouldn't expect him to start off with flashy new initiatives. "He will govern in the way in which he's run the Labour party," a shadow Cabinet minister tells the Guardian. "He's no-drama Starmer. He's very methodical and analytical. He just gets on with things, he wants to fix problems."
• Shifting policies: The Times reports that when he ran to replace Jeremy Corbyn after the party's big loss in 2019, Starmer campaigned on policies that appealed to Labour's left wing—but after winning, he "seized control of the party machinery and executed a remarkable pivot to the political center."
• Challenging times ahead: Lise Butler, senior lecturer in modern history at City University of London, tells the AP that voters are seek to "punish" the Conservative Party, but if he wins, Starmer has some "challenging" years ahead. " He'll probably be facing constant attacks on various grounds from left and right," she said. "So I think that while the outcome of this election is pretty clear, I think all bets are off in terms of ... what Labour's support is going to look like over the next few years."

(More United Kingdom stories.)