Boost for Labour as top troubleshooter backs Keir Starmer for Prime Minister

A widely-respected Whitehall troubleshooter who has worked for both the Tories and Labour has called for the Conservatives to be booted out of office.

Former civil servant Baroness Louise Casey threw her weight behind Keir Starmer’s bid for No10.

A general election must take place by January 2025 but most MPs believe it will take place next year.

Labour currently enjoys poll leads of at least 20 points over the Conservatives – putting Mr Starmer on course for Downing Street.

Demanding “big change”, Baroness Casey said: “We are at the tail end of one government, the country’s on its uppers, we’re all on our knees – well, I’m not, but many, many, too many people are – and we’re at least going to have a different government next year even if it’s the same one refreshed or, God-willing in my view, a completely different government under a Labour administration.

“It’s what I feel, it’s what I think and we are so desperate and need it as a country.”

Baroness Casey, 58, was given a life peerage as a crossbencher in 2020 under Boris Johnson.

This year, she published a bombshell report into standards and culture at the Metropolitan Police which found racism, misogyny, and homophobia at the heart of Britain’s biggest force.

The peer was speaking at a summer reception hosted by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, where she is a visiting professor.

She was on a panel alongside former Conservative Science Minister Lord David Willetts, ex-Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Baroness Casey used her address to lash out at austerity policies unleashed by the Tories from 2010.

She said: “I realise that we’ve had a decade of austerity – more than that, we’ve had longer than that – and actually I think some of what happened because of that has dug so deep and so harshly that actually I think if people had the decency to just look back and say, ‘Maybe we didn’t get all of that right’, I think I’d feel happier to be a crossbench peer and to support people of all different political persuasions.”

* Follow Mirror Politics on Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter and Facebook