The selection of Keir Starmer as Labour’s candidate to succeed Frank Dobson in Holborn & St Pancras is perhaps the least surprising choice since Caligula chose his horse to be a senator (Or is that the other way around?).
He pulled through despite being up against some very strong opposition, including the impressive Sarah Haywood, the leader of Camden Council. One of the losing candidates, Dr Patrick French, complained that Labour had selected yet another lawyer, and it was a disgrace that Labour hasn’t got a single doctor among its MPs. For the so-called party of the NHS that’s quite an embarrassment, bearing in mind there are several on the Tory benches, but the complaints about Starmer’s selection are a bit hollow. He won the selection fair and square. People had the chance to vote for another candidate but they didn’t.
In some ways I am no great fan of Starmer. He was a Director of Public Prosecutions who liked the sound of his own voice a little too much. However, he reached the top of his profession and therefore will surely bring something extra to our parliamentary life. Shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that someone like him even wants to be an MP? Too many people at the top of their respective professions wouldn’t even consider going into politics and I totally understand why. Far better people like Starmer in parliament than the ranks of serial nonentities whose only achievement is to grease up to the party establishment after serving as a researcher or a special adviser.
So let’s cut Keir Starmer some slack.
