Many of those who spoke to POLITICO described a lack of \u201ccuriosity\u201d in the PM. \u201cHe just doesn\u2019t ask questions, on policy, politics or apparently propriety either,\u201d another former official said. Some ministers agree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A current government official described Starmer\u2019s approach to interrogating policies and other decisions as \u201chear no evil, see no evil.\u201d The official added: \u201cYou can\u2019t claim to be this meticulous lawyer, this micro-manager, this mandarin and then not care for stuff like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boris Johnson vibes\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
One bizarre example of his passivity is that Starmer apparently does not even express a strong preference about how he wants to spend his own time. \u201cHe is so hands-off about his diary,\u201d another former No. 10 official said. Referring to Jill Cuthbertson, a top aide who used to run Starmer\u2019s diary, this person said: \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like, \u2018what has Jill put in my diary today,\u2019 and then if it was something he didn\u2019t enjoy doing, someone else would bear the brunt of it, but he\u2019d never be involved in the front end of \u2018here\u2019s how I would like to spend my day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
There is one famous exception: Friday evenings. In the final days before the 2024 election, Starmer made a point of saying he had a rule that he would not work after 6 p.m. on Fridays because he wanted to protect family time with his teenage children.\u00a0Predictably, his political opponents claimed at the time that this was evidence the Labour leader would not work hard enough if he won power. <\/p>\n
Plenty of people in Starmer\u2019s team \u2014 including otherwise critical ex-colleagues \u2014 say the charge is unfair. And it is certainly true, for example, that Starmer frequently calls world leaders and attends many meetings on international crises such as Ukraine and the Middle East, at all hours of the day and week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But some former officials still see problems. In the end, the job \u201cdemands\u201d constant work and a willingness to spend every waking moment strategizing about politics, one said. And senior government staffers could find the premier eerily quiet outside normal office hours. \u201cHe certainly isn\u2019t bombarding colleagues with ideas or thoughts about events over the weekend or in the evenings,\u201d another added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many of those who spoke to POLITICO described a lack of \u201ccuriosity\u201d in the PM. \u201cHe just doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[824,625,6229,5704,459,9608,140,461,1344,309,59,57,58,1805,420,31507,5290,632,151,50,101741,424,1445,1351,1352,18638,56,157,54,158,55,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-540335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-boris-johnson","9":"tag-british-politics","10":"tag-communications","11":"tag-conflict","12":"tag-crisis","13":"tag-david-cameron","14":"tag-defense","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-energy","17":"tag-england","18":"tag-gb","19":"tag-great-britain","20":"tag-greatbritain","21":"tag-john-healey","22":"tag-keir-starmer","23":"tag-liz-kendall","24":"tag-logistics","25":"tag-middle-east","26":"tag-military","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-oliver-robbins","29":"tag-peter-mandelson","30":"tag-rachel-reeves","31":"tag-security","32":"tag-services","33":"tag-tony-blair","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-ukraine","36":"tag-united-kingdom","37":"tag-united-states","38":"tag-unitedkingdom","39":"tag-wales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}