The significance of Keir Starmer’s hatred of losing

'I'm single-minded about the Labour Party going into power, into government', Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tells ITV News' Political Editor Robert Peston

Keir Starmer is the paradoxical party leader. The prime minister calls him Sir Softy for his policy U-turns. John McDonnell, the Labour former shadow chancellor, calls him drunk with power, in effect a hard b******, ruthlessly purging dissenters and dropping Corbynista programmes. Starmer himself insists he is being unusually ambitious in setting out his five missions for Britain. His critics on the left and right say these are far too general, lacking in either concrete pledges or serious funding.

Unusually, all of these assertions about Starmer contain a truth. And what binds them is what those who know him well say is his most important character trait, which has been manifested his entire life: a visceral hatred of losing, ever. This was true of him as a campaigning lawyer, then when he ran the Crown Prosecution Service, and as an MP who - all the polls would say - is probably a year and a bit away from becoming PM, despite having been an MP for just eight years. And, I am told, in the weekly football games he's played since he was ten. So in the last of his quintet of missions, launched today at a further education college in Gillingham, Kent - where Labour recently took control of the council - there was the combination that has become his trademark: ambitious language, and cautious promises; hopeful statements, few hostages to fortune. This fifth mission was billed as "breaking down the barriers to opportunity". And it was about what he says is the part of his politics that is most rooted in his own life: demolishing the so-called "class ceiling", and decoupling the life prospects of young people from the privilege or disadvantages of their parents.

'It's not all about money, we need reform,' insists Keir Starmer

Inevitably most of this is about reforming state education, to promote social mobility. It is personal for Sir Keir, he says, because of what he identifies as his own working class background - his dad a toolmaker, his mum a nurse. The concrete proposals in the mission are to recruit more teachers in those subjects where there are shortages, like maths and sciences, pay loyalty bonuses to teachers who stay the course for years, broaden the curriculum so that it embraces more arts, sport and digital skills, and put oracy - the ability to communicate orally - at the heart of what schools do. Many educationalists would say most of this would make sense. And helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds communicate with greater clarity and confidence will surely level the playing field to a degree. But what is also conspicuous is what Sir Keir is not doing. He is not committing the billions of pounds per annum teachers say are needed to make up for years in which their pay has lagged behind the private sector. He is not committing the billions of pounds needed to fix schools Sir Keir himself concedes are "crumbling". He says digital equipment in schools is obsolete, but won't say how or when it will be upgraded. He says the school curriculum has to be radically reformed, but won't start even the formal review to change it till after Labour has won an election. He understands the case that malnourished young people find it harder to learn, and often face health challenges later in life, yet won't commit to extend the number who qualify for free school meals.

Peston asks Keir Starmer: 'Why isn't there more of a commitment to free school meals?'

His approach is defensive. He does not want to give the Tories the ammunition to allege a Labour government would borrow even more than they are doing and drive up inflation and interest rates yet more. When it comes to his refusal to give proper specifics before the election about how the school curriculum would change, he does not want to risk an attack from the right-wing media. And so on, and so on. In a metaphor he would understand, his approach is redolent of his beloved Arsenal in the pre-Wenger era, the 'one-nil to the Arsenal' era - rather than the flamboyant football of the Arsenal of latter years. In an interview, I put to him that he was being too cautious, relying too much on the Tories to crumble, rather than playing an exciting, creative, attacking game. He seemed chastened in his reply. And it is true that with a maximum of 18 months before the next election, he certainly doesn't need at this stage to take silly risks. But whether he can turn his arguably solid missions into promises that excite voters, which is his task between now and his party conference in October, will shape whether this politician who hates to lose will have the joy of a decisive victory.

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