Lonely at the top: who are Keir Starmer’s allies as daunting May elections loom?
Given that the signs of an embattled premiership are all around – defensive-sounding interviews insisting he will be in post at the next election; a rush of stories about supposed cabinet plotting – now, more than ever, Keir Starmer needs real allies.And here, at least, there is something to feel positive about.If you talk to most Labour MPs, Starmer most likely will not lead Labour into the next election.He may even not remain in No 10 much beyond a set of Scottish, Welsh and local English elections on 7 May, which are expected to be disastrous for his party.All that said, Starmer is not totally isolated.
Unlike some prime ministers, whose connections in parliament felt largely transactional, there are people in Starmer’s working life who are genuine friends.Additionally, as a relatively late entrant to politics, he has a large and varied collection of pre-politics friends, a group that those who know the prime minister say he leans on even more closely.So who can Starmer count on amid a job that even at the best of moments, as he told the Sunday Times in an interview this week, can be relentless and thankless?In the cabinet, his oldest friend is Richard Hermer, the attorney general, someone Starmer first got to know 30 years ago as a fellow lawyer, one of a number of people the PM stays in touch with from his former profession.Lord Hermer is castigated by some newspapers and commentators as an ultra-liberal policy whisperer by the side of the throne, something insiders argue is overplayed.Starmer does, however, evidently trust Hermer on international law, with the attorney general’s initial advice about the UK steering clear of the Iran war helping shape a policy widely seen as one of the government’s few recent successes.
In the same camp of ministers who can also be counted as friends are Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, and Jenny Chapman, the Labour MP turned peer who is the international development minister.One sign of the trust Starmer has in Thomas-Symonds, who like him entered parliament in 2015 after a career outside politics, is his brief, which involved charting the way towards the reset in UK-EU relations.Lady Chapman spent three years working alongside Starmer on the shadow Brexit brief.After losing her Darlington seat at the 2019 election, she chaired Starmer’s campaign to become Labour leader, then working as his political secretary, before becoming a peer.Then there are ministers who, while not necessarily close friends, are highly trusted.
One is Pat McFadden, the work and pension secretary, often the person sent out on the most bruising morning broadcast rounds, for example after the Gorton and Denton byelection,In a similar group is Darren Jones, whose loyalty and sheer organisational zeal – more or less every media interview with Jones includes a reference to his love of spreadsheets – has seen him made the Downing Street chief secretary, in charge of cross-departmental organising,There are two concurrent stories here,On the first, whether Starmer has enough people steadfastly in his corner to keep him in the job, the answer is: probably not,But there is also the idea of how much his hinterland and friendship might help, if and when the political blow lands.
Here, he feels better protected than some.One of the notable elements in the 2024 biography of Starmer by the journalist Tom Baldwin was the repeated mention of the sheer depth of non-political friends who still surround the prime minister and their very obvious loyalty.“They are very important,” says one person who knows Starmer well.“He definitely gets as much if not more advice from his extra-parliamentary friends.”Spanning various sections of Starmer’s life – school, university, the law plus the five-a-side football he has played for decades – some take an enjoyably sceptical approach to their friend’s current job.
Speaking to Baldwin before Labour won the election, Colin Peacock, whom Starmer first met after rescuing him when some school bullies were sellotaping Peacock to a gravestone, said he expected his old friend would “miss his old life”.He went on: “When it all goes wrong, I’ll be there for him, of course.I’ll be there going: ‘Told you so, told you, told you.’”All that said, life at the political peak is so relentless that it has had an impact even on some of Starmer’s relationships.He entered No 10 with a series of much-trusted staffers around him, most notably Morgan McSweeney, the strategist who charted Labour’s election win, but also a series of others.
Now they are pretty much all gone, bar Ben Nunn, a longstanding aide and friend who remains a regular presence in No 10 despite now working for Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.McSweeney departed amid the Peter Mandelson scandal.Others, including Paul Ovenden, Starmer’s head of political strategy, and Steph Driver, his head of communications chief, departed in circumstances which, while varied, did not show much effort by Starmer to protect them.This is a seeming paradox to Starmer that even some allies point out – for someone so loyal in some parts of his life, he can also be ruthless, even dismissive.As his political foes line up against him, he will hope those around him remember the first trait.
Cannes AI film festival raises eyebrows – and questions about future
In Cannes’ darkened screening rooms, the supposed future of cinema flickered into life this week and it was strange. The first edition of the World AI film festival (WAIFF) showcased visions of men with fish scales erupting from their necks and seaweed from their mouths, a heroine with a heart beating outside her body and so many massed armies of AI-generated tanned men sweeping across battlefields that David Lean would have blushed.Last week the Cannes film festival, entering its 76th year, banned the emerging technology from its Palme d’Or competition, insisting “AI imitates very well but it will never feel deep emotions”. But this week the Croisette was taken over by the upstart AI film movement and their big-tech backers amid increasing investment and attention from the Hollywood studios. A “nouvelle vague”, they said, is coming
Facing AI and a tough job market, gen Z turns to entrepreneurship: ‘I have to prove myself’
When Ashley Terrell graduated from the University of Hawaii in 2024, she planned to find a job in marketing, maybe for a tech company. She had a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a college résumé that included a student marketing job for Red Bull. But after months of applying, her only offer was to work in the power tools section at Home Depot. “It was quite a shock,” she told the Guardian. “I searched for jobs every single day in that Home Depot bathroom
TikTok and Visa launch debit card to speed payouts to UK creators
TikTok and Visa have launched a debit card for content creators in the UK which they say will allow people to quickly access their earnings from the platform.The creator card is designed for the growing numbers of people making money through TikTok Live, a livestreaming feature where creators receive virtual gifts from viewers that are later converted into cash.The two companies said the card, which links to a user’s creator account on TikTok, was designed to address cashflow issues faced by users who often wait days or weeks for payments to clear.Launched in 2020, TikTok Live is a section of the app where users can broadcast to viewers in real time. According to TikTok, more than 15 million people broadcasted via its platform in Europe in 2025
Officials hugely underestimated impact of AI datacentres on UK carbon emissions
The UK government vastly underestimated the climate impact of artificial intelligence, it has emerged, after officials raised their estimate of carbon emissions from AI by a factor of more than 100.According to new data quietly published this week, energy use by AI datacentres in the UK could cause the emission of up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) – about as much as generated by 2.7 million people – over the next 10 years.That latest figure replaces a previous estimate – since deleted – that claimed emissions would reach a maximum of 0.142m tonnes of CO₂ in a single year
‘Look, no hands’: China chases the driverless dream at Beijing car show
At the world’s biggest car fair, which opened in Beijing on Friday, there were hundreds of manufacturers, more than 1,000 vehicles, hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts – and hardly anyone behind a wheel.China’s car companies have cornered the domestic electric vehicle market, and are increasingly visible on the global stage. Now they are turning their attention to what they are betting is the future of mobility: autonomous driving.At the Beijing Auto Fair, officially called Auto China 2026, a huge industry event that covers 380,000 square metres on the outskirts of the capital, the country’s carmakers showed off a range of intelligent driving technologies.In China’s cut-throat domestic market, nearly every big carmaker is investing heavily in the software and computing power needed to make “hands-free” driving a reality as they compete to offer additional perks and find new ways to generate revenue
What is a passkey, how does it work and why is it better than a password?
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has called time on the password – from now on, you should use a passkey.The NCSC said this week it would no longer recommend using passwords where passkeys were available. They should be consumers’ first choice of login across all digital services because passwords were not secure enough to stand up to modern cyber threats.Security officials describe a passkey as a “digital stamp” that allows you to sign in to apps and websites and is stored on your device.It is a password-free form of login
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