'Agile' Keir Starmer tipped to glide into Downing Street in Labour's centenary year

Jon Cruddas, Labour's top thinker, tells The National that his leader could continue the party's historic achievements once in power

Keir Starmer has been the Labour party's leader since 2020, and is now the UK's prime minister. Here The National looks back through his political career. Getty Images

Mr Starmer speaking in Westminster, London, in May after Rishi Sunak announced the general election for July 4. AP

Mr Starmer speaks to Labour supporters at Harlow Town Football Club's stadium in Essex, on the eve of local elections in May. Getty Images

Mr Starmer talks to Dan Poulter at the Francis Crick Institute in London in April, after the MP had defected from the Conservative Party to Labour. Getty Images

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Mr Starmer during the launch of Mr Khan's mayoral re-election campaign in March, which proved successful. Getty Images

Mr Starmer addresses the Labour Business Conference in London in February. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and Mr Sunak at the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament in November 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer addresses delegates at the National Annual Women's Conference in Liverpool in October 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer with his shadow cabinet in London in September 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer speaks to supporters in Chatham after a Labour win in local elections in May 2023. Getty Images

Joining party activists at a national phone bank on local elections day in London in May 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster, London, in February 2023. Getty Images

The Labour leader and his wife Victoria leave the stage after his speech at the party conference in Liverpool in September 2022. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and then-UK prime minister Liz Truss leave the Palace of Westminster in September 2022. Getty Images

With former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair, centre, and Gordon Brown, right, at St James's Palace, London, where King Charles III was formally proclaimed monarch in September 2022. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and then-prime minister Boris Johnson attend the State Opening of Parliament in May 2022. Getty Images

Mr Starmer makes his keynote speech to the Labour conference for the first time as party leader in September 2021 in Brighton. Getty Images

The gloves are on during a visit to the Vulcan Boxing Club in Hull, East Yorkshire, in April 2021. Getty Images

Mr Starmer in talks with care home workers and family members of residents at Cafe 1899 in Gedling Country Park during the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Getty Images

Mr Starmer, then-shadow secretary of state for exiting the EU, addresses the audience at a hustings in March 2020 in Dudley. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn talk to the media at the EU Commission headquarters in March 2019 in Brussels. Getty Images

Mr Starmer delivers a speech on Labour's Brexit policy at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London in April 2017. Getty Images

Holding a press conference as Director of Public Prosecutions to outline new guidelines on assisted suicide, in London in September 2009. Getty Images

Human rights advisers Mr Starmer and Jane Gordon with the Northern Ireland Policing Board annual human rights report 2006, at the Dunadry Hotel in Co Antrim. Getty Images

At a time when Labour is soaring in the polls and widely seen as a near-certainty to form the next British government, the man at the heart of the party’s thinking has spoken of the “huge opportunity” that awaits Keir Starmer.

Jon Cruddas has come to appreciate his boss's political agility in a fractious party, describing his decisions as "quite cute".

That dexterity will come under severe examination from day one if as expected the Labour leader enters Downing Street later this year.

Once Labour’s chief policy thinker, Mr Cruddas has been critical of the Labour leader, but in an interview with The National it became clear his views have mellowed on Britain’s likely next prime minister.

Labour’s century

Entering Downing Street would in itself would be a remarkable achievement. Only three Labour leaders have won general elections outright in the party’s history, and it has been in power for only 33 of the past 100 years.

Those figures come easily to Mr Cruddas, whose book A Century of Labour is published on Friday to mark the centenary of the first time the party took office, under Ramsay MacDonald on 22 Jan 1924.

It’s an “incredible history of significant achievements but also of epic failures” said Mr Cruddas, reeling off the achievements with ease and relish as we chatted in a quiet corner of parliament, close to the heart of the power that has eluded Labour for 14 years.

The National Health Service, welfare state, national minimum wage, Bank of England independence, devolution and Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement, are landmark successes.

And the failures? Being out of power for long stretches, all lasting more than a decade, and others such as supporting the invasion of Iraq.

Glitz free

While Mr Starmer lacks former prime minister Tony Blair’s “glitz”, he too will almost certainly be faced with foreign policy crises from the moment he enters Downing Street, possibly this autumn.

As a former director of public prosecutions his abilities will help him absorb the detail and his “pragmatism” will ensure necessary but potentially unpopular decisions are made, said Mr Cruddas.

That latter quality has seen Mr Starmer support the government on its line of calling for a “sustainable ceasefire” in the Israel-Gaza war and the Houthi air strikes.

“His temperament is not performative, it's pragmatic and focused on the resolution of issues and that could work quite well as prime minister,” said Mr Cruddas, 61. “It’s going to be a difficult inheritance and a pragmatic approach could be what's needed to deal with a potential Donald Trump presidency.”

There is also a desire to build bridges with the international community, evidenced by sending his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to mix with world leaders and company chiefs in Davos this week. Mr Starmer was also notably present at Cop28 in UAE last year.

On the cusp

Labour’s road to power is narrow, Mr Cruddas states, markedly more difficult for the party than the Conservatives, mainly due to a hostile press and the voting system.

Power only comes when the party manages to unite its various factions, which swing between the right of centre to the far left, said the centre-left MP, who served as policy chief under former leader Ed Miliband.

What Mr Starmer seems to have achieved is an adroitness in not overtly belonging to any particular faction or their policies.

Therefore, Mr Cruddas carefully admits that Labour could be “on the cusp” of the sixth majority government in its history.

That comes on the back of the latest poll, which put the Tories 27 points behind Labour. “It could be a serious, significant majority,” said the MP. “But I’m not assuming anything because there's quite a few laps of the track left.”

If Labour does win big – some polls suggest they could do so by 100 MPs – then that “creates huge opportunities”.

But a Starmer administration will not be a government “awash with grand theories of change”. Instead he will “dial it down a bit” Mr Cruddas suggested, which he said was what people needed after the Tory ructions of the post-Brexit years.

“I don't think you'll see a lot of showbiz,” he added.

Good healer

Mr Starmer will be more like Harold Wilson – twice Prime Minister in the 1960s and 1970s – with his solid industrial strategy, rather than the glitz of Mr Blair. He also predicts a “a good healer who brings people together”.

The Tories may need more of a miracle worker than healer if they are to avoid implosion after their looming defeat.

The Labour thinker articulates the concern of many moderate Conservatives, who fear the party could spilt once out of power, with the right-wingers heading into the arms of Nigel Farage.

“I don't want to be melodramatic but it does looks like Nigel Farage is circling,” he said.

“I've been in Labour when it's been really tough and you can see how parties crack open.”

The Tories had been “ripped apart” by the post-Brexit tensions, something evident on Thursday when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempted to shore up party unity following rebellions on his Rwanda deportation policy.

At a Downing Street press conference Mr Sunak failed to say whether he would punish the rebels or guarantee that the illegal immigrants would be put on flights to Rwanda this year.

Elusive leader

Those ructions are something Mr Starmer will largely avoid having moulded a relatively united party after the pivot to the far left under the previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Starmer, “has come in relatively light”, from no particular Labour tradition, which allows him to be “agile”, said the MP, who will leave parliament at the next election after representing Dagenham in Essex for 23 years.

“But he can be quite elusive in terms of nailing down that political character and definition,” warned Mr Cruddas.

As a pragmatist – and a witness to Tory division – Mr Starmer is likely highly conscious of the pitfalls that come with power.

Britain's Labour Party through the years - in pictures