Person in News: PM Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer has become the new United Kingdom Prime Minister after Labour’s landslide election victory. 

About Keir Starmer

• He is a British politician and barrister 
• He was raised in Surrey, South East England
• He Joined the Labour Party Young Socialists at age 16.

Political Career

• Elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras in 2015.
• Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (2016-2020).
• Shadow Immigration Minister (2015-2016).
• Elected as Leader of the Labour Party in April 2020.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Legal Career

• Starmer became a barrister in 1987 at the Middle Temple.
• He became a bencher at Middle Temple in 2009.
• Early Career:
  • Served as a legal officer for the campaign group Liberty until 1990.
  • Joined Doughty Street Chambers in 1990, focusing on human rights issues.
• International Work:
  • Called to the bar in several Caribbean countries.
  • Defended convicts sentenced to the death penalty in the Caribbean.

Achievements and Positions

• Appointed Queen’s Counsel (QC) on April 9, 2002, at the age of 39.
• Served as a human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the Association of Chief Police Officers.
• In July 2008, he was appointed Starmer as the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Director of Public Prosecutions.
  • Starmer was noted for bringing a focus on human rights into the legal system.
• Reforms: In 2011, he introduced the “first test paperless hearing”.
• Operation Yewtree: In 2013, implemented changes to how sexual abuse investigations are handled.
  • In this process, he created  a panel to review historic complaints amid Operation Yewtree.

Awards and Honors

• Pro Bono Recognition: Received the Bar Council’s Sydney Elland Goldsmith Award in 2005 for outstanding pro bono work in challenging the death penalty in Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and the Caribbean.
• Academic Honor: Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
• Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath: Appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to law and criminal justice.
• Privy Council Membership: Sworn into the Privy Council of the United Kingdom on 19 July 2017.
  • It allows him to be styled “The Right Honourable”.

Check Out UPSC CSE Books From PW Store