Top lawyer whose 'Mr Rules' approach failed to connect with the public

Sir Keir Starmer: Top lawyer whose 'Mr Rules' approach failed to connect with the public 9 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on Google Becky Morton and Brian Wheeler , political reporters Getty Images Few politicians have endured a more dramatic fall from grace than Sir Keir Starmer. Less than two years ago, he was celebrating a landslide general election victory and was seemingly set to dominate British politics for years to come. Now he has been ejected from power by his own party and instead of ushering in a "decade of national renewal," as he had promised, he is contemplating a return to the back benches. In an emotional resignation speech, delivered at a lectern outside his Downing Street front door, he said his party had asked "whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election". "I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace." The scale of Labour's victory in 2024 puts Sir Keir in very rarefied company - only two previous Labour leaders, Tony Blair and Clement Attlee, had managed to win elections with three-figure parliamentary majorities. But it was achieved on an historically low share of the national vote, and Sir Keir's popularity with the electorate nosedived within weeks of him arriving in Downing Street, after a series of mis-steps and policy U-turns, and never really recovered. The fact that he will go down now in history as Labour's shortest-serving prime minister will be a bitter pill for him to swallow. A promise to restore trust in politics Sir Keir Starmer was always an unusual Labour leader. He had come late to politics, only becoming an MP in his 50s after a high-flying career in law. Unlike most of his predecessors, he had not spent decades honing his political skills and building alliances with colleagues. It was not always clear where he stood on the political spectrum. He saw this lack of baggage as a strength, once boasting that there would never be such a thing as Starmerism. But the growing army of critics among his own MPs felt that he lacked a clear ideology and was, simply, not very good at politics. He had set out his stall as a sensible, pragmatic leader who would always act in the national interest - a serious man for serious times. His procedural, methodical style was summed up by his Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who dubbed him "Mr Rules". But his opponents claimed he lacked the communication skills to get Labour's message across. In an age when authenticity and emotion dominate politics, he could come across as stiff and wooden. In his election victory speech outside 10 Downing Street in 2024, Sir Keir promised to restore trust in politics and return the country to "calmer waters". Signalling a clean break with what he had called the chaos and sleaze of the Tory years, he vowed to "restore service and respect to politics, end the era of noisy performance, tread more lightly on your lives and unite our country". Live: Keir Sta