Keir Starmer is a HR manager, NOT a leader and Angela Rayner ‘manipulates people’, blasts expose
LABOUR voiced doubts over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership amid accusations he wasn’t “driving the train” – but is more like a HR manager, it is claimed.
The Prime Minister comes under scathing attack in a new book on his qualities leading the organisation shortly before the general election.
While deputy leader Angela Rayner is described as someone who “manipulates people”.
The revelations appear in Get In, by authors Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, which chart’s the party’s rise to power following 14 years in Opposition.
One aide said: “Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR”.
The DLR is a reference to driverless Docklands Light Railway trains in the capital.
Concerns about his leadership have also been raised by his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney who complained he behaved like a “HR manager”.
He even raised fears about his boss’s long-term ambitions in 2021 when he declared: “What’s the point in circling the wagons if you can’t last?”
Ms Rayner even joked he was so inept he couldn’t run a bath, in extracts from the book serialised in The Sunday Times.
Mr Starmer also hired an acting coach to help overcome his aversion to addressing crowds and his “wooden” styles back in 2017.
The book goes on to reveal that Mr Starmer didn’t want to define his own brand of politics.
He even told one MP colleague: “There’s no such thing as Starmer-ism and there never will be.”
Mr McSweeney said the PM has “some sense of skulduggery” but the likes of his deputy leader are “political all the time, she manipulates people”.
He added: “All of her people come from Unite. Keir doesn’t realise these are people he cannot do business with.”
PRINCE ANDREW
The book also refers to how Ms Rayner dealt with royal issues after the Queen died.
She reportedly advocated excluding Prince Andrew from royal duties entirely after allegations emerged he sexually abused a 17-year-old and had a close relationship with Epstein — which he has denied.
In 2022, Andrew paid accuser Virginia Giuffre an undisclosed sum, reported to be £12million, to settle her claim for sex assault without admission of wrongdoing.
Referring to discussions on whether to dump Andrew from the monarchy, the deputy Labour leader reportedly said: “I’m not going to vote to keep that nonce on… I can’t go back to my constituency and say, yeah, I support that.”