As Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, two of the most assiduous journalists chronicling Labour, tell the story, the laurels belong to Morgan McSweeney, now Starmer’s chief of staff.
An earnest lawyer and ambitious public prosecutor, Sir Keir Starmer proved a lot of people wrong when he swept his party back to power after 14 years.
Whereas Tom Baldwin’s supportive biography endeavour sought to make an elusive main character feel interesting, Maguire and Pogrund take a more journalistic approach — namely to fish out the juicy niblets and scoops, and fill in the protagonist’s nebulous political shape around it.
Get In concludes with Starmer saddled with the consequences of decisions taken in opposition to secure victory and grappling with harder realities of power in the mid 2020s.
Reprisals are swift and it produces a massive rift with Angela Rayner, who fights back after being removed as party chair, complaining that Starmer is really the problem.
