In just over a week, Sir Keir Starmer and his family could be moving in to 10 Downing Street.
His battle to revive Labour from the hard-Left rabble that was thrashed at the polls in 2019 is well documented.
But his path to actually occupying No 10 has faced another obstacle – in the shape of his teenage daughter.
The Labour leader is fiercely protective of his family. He has never named his two children in public and his wife Victoria –known in Labour circles as Lady Vic – has been conspicuously absent for most of the campaign.
His family plainly prefer it that way. In a profile piece for The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine this month, he revealed his daughter had told him: ‘Just to let you know, if you do win, I’m not coming.’
Now he confirms she has been won over, saying: ‘If we do get over the line, we will of course, in accordance with long standing convention, move to Downing Street. But I don’t want to pre-empt or take for granted anything that is going to happen between now and then.’
Daily Mail political editor Jason Groves interviewed Labour Sir Keir Starmer at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith
Sir Keir is fiercely protective of his family, having never named his children publicly. His wife Victoria has been largely absent from the campaign trail
The impact on his family remains his biggest worry – how will his children get to school, keep in touch with friends, lead something like a normal life while living in the most photographed street in Britain?
‘Yes, I’m very protective,’ he says, ‘particularly of my children. They’re 13-and-a-half and nearly 16. These are very important years. I want them insofar as I can, to just have the normality of being able to go to school, see their friends and do the things that teenagers do.’ Sir Keir also hopes to hang on to his weekly five-a-side football game with friends, which he has been doing for years.
The 61-year-old, who has faced Tory whisperings over his age, says: ‘Yes, I’ll continue to play football for as long as I can possibly do so, which is many years.’
We meet in a small room at a theatre in west London where Sir Keir is about to launch his knife crime strategy alongside actor Idris Elba and families of victims.
Emotions among some of the relatives are still very raw, and it could have been an awkward encounter. Lorraine Jones tells how her son Dwayne Simpson was killed a decade ago with ‘one jab wound’ that ‘went straight through his heart’.
In fact, the former chief prosecutor is in his comfort zone talking to victims of crime. He puts an arm round her and assures her he is in it for the long term on tackling knife crime. She seems mollified for now.
He is much less comfortable when asked about stinging comments at the weekend from author JK Rowling about Labour’s attitude to women’s issues.
The former party donor used an angry article in the Times to lacerate Sir Keir over his ‘dismissive and often offensive’ attitude towards women battling to retain single-sex spaces.
So does the Labour leader have a woman problem?
‘No, and I’ve said, I’m very happy to meet JK Rowling to talk this through,’ he says. ‘I respect her views. I welcome the debate. There are strong and different views on this topic. I recognise that.’
Does it ever cross his mind that she might be right and he might be wrong? He suggests his position is misunderstood.
‘I think on the basic stuff of no self-identification, of women’s spaces – and I don’t just mean in the sort of criminal justice, domestic violence world – but also [hospital] wards, and the proper fairness and integrity of sport, I actually think there’s more common ground than perhaps, is sometimes reported.’
The Labour leader denied he had a ‘woman problem’ and said he was very happy to meet with JK Rowling to talk the issue through
But try to pin him down on specifics and he changes tack and starts talking again about his days as director of public prosecutions. It’s hard to escape the feeling that he has a long way to go before he wins JK Rowling’s approval.
Sir Keir plays down polls showing Labour is on course for a landslide and suggests middle Britain need not fear a lurch back to the Left if he gets a ‘supermajority’ next week.
In 1997, Tony Blair tried to head off similar fears by declaring: ‘We have been elected as New Labour and we will govern as New Labour.’ Sir Keir echoes his mentor’s words exactly, saying: ‘We have campaigned as changed Labour and we will govern as changed Labour.’
But how much has he really changed from the pro-Remain fanatic who pushed for a second referendum and twice tried to put Jeremy Corbyn in No 10? The Labour leader’s most awkward moments during the campaign so far have come when asked about his support for the Marxist throwback, who he once said would make a ‘great Prime Minister’.
He comes close now to admitting that he got it wrong in 2019 and that the public – Daily Mail readers in particular – got it right when they sent Mr Corbyn and his motley crew packing. ‘We’re a completely changed Labour Party,’ he says. ‘Jeremy Corbyn has been expelled – that’s never happened in the history of the Labour Party before – a former leader expelled by the current leader of the Labour Party.’
Certainly, the anti-Semitism and anti-British sentiment which marred the Corbyn years has died down. But will he match Rishi Sunak’s plan to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030? It seems not.
‘We want to get to 2.5 per cent,’ he says. ‘But you’ve got to have a credible plan to get there.’
On tax, he has ruled out raising the headline rates of income tax, National Insurance and VAT. But, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, he has failed to rule out increases in a dozen other areas.
He will not, for example, commit to raising the tax threshold for pensioners to ensure the basic state pension is never taxed, saying he is ‘not going to make commitments that aren’t fully funded and sustainable’. He dismisses Tory claims he plans to ‘rig’ the electorate in his favour as ‘completely wrong’ but confirms he will lower the voting age to 16.
Sir Keir dismisses Tory claims he plans to ‘rig’ the electorate in his favour as ‘completely wrong’ but confirms he will lower the voting age to 16.
Asked why children should be allowed to vote at an age when they cannot buy fireworks, Sir Keir says: ‘When you’re voting at an election you’re voting on what your taxes should be spent on. If you’re contributing to the pot – which you are as a 16, 17 year old – you should have a right to say what it is spent on.’
Central to Sir Keir’s ‘changed Labour’ is his mantra to put ‘country first, party second’. Asked for his pitch to readers of this newspaper, he says: ‘It’s very unusual to have a Labour leader saying wealth creation is my number one mission.
‘I think for most people, your readers, I fully understand that they have aspiration for themselves, for their families, for their communities and for their country. And I’m really pleased that the changed Labour Party aligns with that aspiration.’
Next week we may find out if he is true to his word.