'I'm an ex-Labour MP – here's what Keir Starmer is really like behind closed doors'

A former Labour MP has shed some light on what embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer is really like – and it's not very pleasant. Starmer is facing calls to resign after horrific local elections earlier this month, with potential leadership challenges from Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham creeping up on him.

And while many of his allies are openly calling him “stoic” and “determined,” one current MP who left the part in 2024 has shed some light on what he's really like behind closed doors . . .

Rosie Duffield, who resigned from Labour in September 2024 and has been sitting as an independent ever since, told the Daily Star that he has one rather big issue with what is around 50% of his voters.

She said, recalling her time as chair of the party's Group of Women MPs: “He seemed to be afraid of women – talked to us with terror and bafflement.

“When I chaired Labour's Group of Women MPs, we had to drag him kicking and screaming to even talk with us, he seemed terrified

“He is often portrayed in political satire such as the excellent new Saturday Night Live UK and Dead Ringers, as dull, wooden, totally emotionless – spookily similar to Spitting Image's puppet John Major, who was seen as a grey, boring, pea-eating character making awkward dinner time small talk with his long-suffering wife Norma.

“We have been told by his Cabinet Ministers that Keir is a decent man, and feels all criticism of his leadership deeply, yet if he is truly capable of feeling any empathy with others – voters struggling to afford food and fuel, farmers, small businesses, pensioners, public sector workers using food banks, he has a funny way of showing it.”

She added that it could be “time for him to make room for a brand new character for comedians to make fun of”.

Rosie was one of the first to leave Labour after Starmer came to power, citing his acceptance of gifts from Lord Alli and the cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners – but also said that the time that Labour was her “natural home” and one day hoped to return.

Should Starmer leave . . . that door to return could reopen.