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As Sir Keir Starmer’s time in No 10 comes to an end, we weigh up his next career options |
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Guy Kelly |
“This is the end of my political journey,” Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons on Wednesday, at his final PMQs.
Tomorrow, Andy Burnham, having already abdicated as King of the North and become the new Labour leader, will take Starmer’s other job as prime minister.
With that, one black, shiny door closes for Starmer, but another surely opens. Hale and hearty at 63, as an enthusiastic promoter of both hard graft and raising the retirement age, he undoubtedly has another act in him, but what will it involve?
Remarkably, Starmer will become our ninth living former prime minister. Glancing at the day-to-day activities of that illustrious group, there’s clearly no blueprint for what an ex-PM is meant to do.
Sir Tony Blair has his global institute. Liz Truss has her podcast. Boris Johnson has his children... so, so many children. The world is Starmer’s oyster, then, and with that in mind, I’ve attempted to analyse some of his options.
Could he stay in politics, but switch sides? Could he and Rachel Reeves start the least interesting podcast of all time? Could he embrace the TV career his head of hair has always deserved? He promised change, now let’s see how he transforms himself...
For subscribers only ➤
Burnham’s best hope of success is a snap election ➤
Burnham to scrap digital ID cards ➤ |
Josh Kerr has broken Hicham El Guerrouj’s 27-year-old mile world record |
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Jeremy Wilson Chief Sports Reporter, at the London Stadium |
It was like ‘Super Saturday’ at the 2012 Olympics all over again.
Some 60,000 were packed into the London Stadium, Lord Coe was trackside, the eyes of the athletics world were on London and the sports-loving British public roared home an achievement that will be written in athletics history.
Seventy-two years on from Sir Roger Bannister’s first four-minute mile, Josh Kerr has brought the iconic world mile record back to Great Britain. Like Sir Roger, the feat was also achieved on British soil, toppling a record that had stood since 1999 set by middle-distance running great Hicham El Guerrouj.
The noise could apparently be heard all the way to Basildon. The Telegraph was there to witness history being made and has been there every step of the way during Kerr’s training camp, documenting every little detail on what it takes to become the world’s fastest man over one mile.
With the momentous occassion also beamed around the nation live on BBC One, this was the shot in the arm athletics needed. The Commonwealth Games begin next week where Scotland’s Kerr will be one of the main events as he attempts to beat his own mile record.
But first, he will bask in the glory of a truly special moment for British athletics.
Continue reading ➤ |
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Janet Daley The eccentricity of Count Binface and the generosity of spirit shown to Starmer’s last PMQs are reasons for optimism Continue reading ➤
Kemi Badenoch The House of Lords is not an honours system Continue reading ➤
Jake Wallis Simons Trump is sliding into a forever war with Iran Continue reading ➤ |
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Lord Young: ‘I think Burnham may actually turn out to be worse than Keir Starmer in terms of free speech’ |
Sipping flat whites in his west London garden, Lord Young is celebrating a milestone: his Free Speech Union has now fought over 6,000 cases. Yet the scars of his own spectacular 2018 cancellation still run deep. He warns that cancel culture is a “religion without forgiveness” and explains why he recently refused to defend one high-profile union member. For subscribers only ➤ |
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Younger generations believe they have it harder than their boomer parents |
After writing in this newsletter about bitter millennials resenting their boomer parents’ lavish lifestyles, my own mother and father quickly set the record straight. They reminded me of our 1980s London basement flat and cheap ferry crossings to France, arguing they had now earned the right to live a little. Thousands of Telegraph readers agreed, recalling 14 per cent mortgages, £5 food budgets and post-war unemployment. Now, they are swapping grandparent duties for African sunrises and refuse to feel guilty about it. Continue reading ➤ |
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Zora Benhamou, a gerontologist, wants to stay strong enough to travel, lift her own suitcase and live independently into her 80s |
As a gerontologist, people expect me to say I want to live to 120, writes Zora Benhamou, a 56-year-old longevity expert. I’m not chasing eternal youth, but merely practising daily habits now to ensure a better old age. Here’s the things I do – from using blood flow restriction bands to learning a new language – to protect my future. Continue reading ➤ |
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Affordable activities may be the key to summer fun |
The school holidays are here and British children are facing the luxuriant prospect of six long and languorous weeks of fun-packed freedom. Now, British parents are gearing up to keep those children entertained. Our summertime guide has a list of affordable (or free) classic activities families will love. Continue reading ➤
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No film needs to be three hours’ long
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Anita Singh Arts and Entertainment Editor |
The Odyssey reviews are in. Our own Robbie Collin calls it “astonishing”, “thrilling” and “trailblazing”. For other critics, Sir Christopher Nolan’s film is “staggering”, “jaw-detaching”, “transporting” and “epically satisfying”. Do you know what else it is? At least an hour too long.
I don’t say this because I’m a philistine who has failed to appreciate the brilliance of Homer’s storytelling. As it happens, I’m reading a translation of The Odyssey right now (Daniel Mendelsohn’s version, very good). It’s because no film needs to be nearly three hours long. The Odyssey clocks in at two hours and 52 minutes. Nolan’s fanboys will say that his masterworks deserve this screentime. They said the same about his last film, Oppenheimer, which went on for three hours. It took home the Best Picture Oscar. Did it deserve to win? No idea. I went to see Barbie (114 minutes) instead.
Epics are long by their very nature. I understand that. Great for a book, or oral storytelling around the fire outside your thatched hut. Not for films. It’s why I’ve never watched Lawrence of Arabia, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Ben-Hur or Gone with the Wind from start to finish, but have somehow pieced them together after catching the beginning, middle and end – not necessarily in that order – on TV over the years.
This refusal to cut films down to size isn’t restricted to epics. The last film I saw in the cinema was Wuthering Heights, because I wanted to see how terrible it was (answer: very). That was two hours and 16 minutes, and I spent the final 45 minutes willing Cathy to hurry up and die. Yes, there are now fancy cinemas with reclining seats and footrests, but you’re still stuck in your seat for the duration. Have these filmmakers never heard of deep vein thrombosis?
Two hours should be the cutoff. As a child of the ‘80s, I regularly re-watch beloved films from that decade. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Top Gun, Blade Runner – all told in under two hours. Their 21st-century sequels? All longer.
There are exceptions to every rule. Titanic runs for more than three hours but gets a pass because James Cameron wanted the disaster scenes to happen in real time (it took two hours and 40 minutes for the ship to sink, and he had to bookend that with the soppy Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio bits). I was surprised to look up Die Hard and see its running time is 132 minutes, because the action whips by. Most long films, though – looking at you, Christopher Nolan – could simply do with a brisk edit. Lop a bit off those battle scenes, squeeze the number of times Matt Damon looks miserably out to sea. No one will notice.
I’m off to the cinema this weekend. I shall walk past the hordes queuing for an Odyssey screening and settle down with my son to watch the new Minions movie. Will it offer the sense of awe promised by Nolan’s epic? I somehow doubt it. However, I’ll be home before the Trojans have realised there’s something iffy about that horse. |
Dinkie Flowers celebrating her 101st birthday by dancing with Sir Lindsay Hoyle at Speaker’s House in 2022 |
Dinkie Flowers, who has died aged 105, was a dancer and skater who was billed in the 1940s as “England’s only ice acrobat”. She started out in the 1930s with a ragtime outfit whose piano was reinforced so she could dance on it. As a skater she was banned from Spain when the Franco government condemned her can-can as too “sensual”. She did the Dance of the Seven Veils on ice, and when Prince Philip saw her perform he sent her a letter of congratulation.
She became a regular in the fashionable “ice pantomimes” of the 1950s and ice-danced for six months as part of a British cultural project in Iraq, where she taught King Faisal II to skate. She married the manager of the Raymond Revuebar in Soho and ran a dance school in Shoreham-by-Sea for half a century. Her work included choreographing Perseus and Andromeda, a light opera written by the astronomer Patrick Moore.
Dinkie Flowers: her routines included a version of the Dance of the Seven Veils on ice |
Dinkie competed against dancers a fifth of her age in Simon Cowell’s The Greatest Dancer, aged 98, and on her 101st birthday persuaded the Sir Lindsay Hoyle to dance with her during a visit to Westminster. She elected to leave Speaker’s House by sliding down the banister rather than taking the stairs. She carried on dancing into her final year: “From the age of three I have danced and have never stopped,” she said. “I am not likely to until they take me out in a box.”
Read her full obituary here ➤ |
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1545 | Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, sinks off the coast of Portsmouth
1941 | Winston Churchill launches his “V for Victory” campaign
1954 | Elvis Presley’s debut single, a cover of Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right, is released
1969 | Apollo 11 goes into lunar orbit (and our front page the following day below)
Birthdays: Benedict Cumberbatch (50), David Lammy (54), Vitali Klitschko (55), Sir Brian May (79)
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The Telegraph has released a range of bite-sized puzzles perfect for a two-minute mental workout on the go. To celebrate, we are bringing you a different one each day this week. Today, for the last instalment, try our Mini Panagram.
P.S. If you’re missing the Panagram, rest assured it will return tomorrow, and in the meantime you can play today’s here. |
Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
P.S. Please share your thoughts on the newsletter at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk. |
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