Silent Starmer, an autocrat in waiting

Sir Keir Starmer – balanced and courageous enough to put country before party, or a latent autocrat prone to flip-flopping?

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Josh Glancy’s detailed profile of the Labor leader (Magazine, last week) confirmed my suspicions: Keir Starmer is a latent autocrat. How else to describe someone who so eagerly pursues power while revealing so little of his plans to use it? This is fundamentally dishonest – not a lie, perhaps, but dishonesty by omission.

We will only know what Starmer really stands for after the election. I think he will implement unaffordable policies without an electoral mandate.
Richard Casselle, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire

Grey areas
Matthew Syed repeats the common allegation that Starmer has a habit of “changing his mind” (Commentary, last week), but much of this stems from his recognition (typical of a lawyer) of the complexity of the issues . The areas mentioned by Syed — rail nationalisation, renewable energy, tuition fees and certainly the transgender issue – are all multifaceted and open to more than one reasonable approach, particularly in changing circumstances. Starmer is simply opposed to simplistic solutions.
Andrew Whiteley, Consett, County Durham

Corbyn sacrificed
Glancy refers to Starmer’s ambition and ruthlessness and claims he demonstrated these qualities by expelling Jeremy Corbyn from the Labor Party. Yes, but it also demonstrated his lack of integrity. Corbyn had done nothing to deserve his expulsion.
Brendan O’Brien, London N21

Dramatic change
Britain has come to believe that the political chaos and psychodrama of recent years is normal. This is not the case. They have made our country unstable both economically and politically. We desperately need a leader like Starmer: someone balanced, principled, ruthless and courageous enough to put the country before parties and political cronies. I can’t wait for July 5th to arrive.
Veronica Foote, Sutton, London

Climb up the ladder
Starmer, like many bright children, benefited from a scholarship to a private school. He now wants to tax private schools, reducing their ability to help disadvantaged, ambitious and intelligent children like him. He ignores the fact that many parents who send their children to private schools are like his own: ambitious workers who only want to give their children the best possible chances in life. Like many successful people, he pulls the ladder behind him.

Starmer may be, as Glancy says, a nice guy in private, but that does not qualify him for public office. As prime minister, he will be weak, unscrupulous and manipulated by people politically smarter than he is. He will be a disaster for the country.
Rita Rake, Haslemere, Surrey

Spin a line
Starmer has repeatedly said his poor parents cut off the phone when they couldn’t pay the bill. Yet in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was growing up, few working-class people owned telephones. Many would like to convince their wealthier neighbor to allow them the occasional use of something important.

In 1974, I went into labor with my second child in the middle of the night. While my husband looked after our toddler, I walked down the street to use the payphone to call a taxi. We were not particularly poor: that was normal at the time.
Lesley Woodfield, York