Starmer enjoys ‘honeymoon’ start as UK PM

LONDON: Britain´s Keir Starmer could hardly have asked for a better first week as prime minister, from hobnobbing with fellow world leaders to England´s run to the final of the European football championships.

But a rebellion brewing within his ruling Labour party over child welfare payments and a prisons overcrowding crisis forcing the early release of offenders means the honeymoon is unlikely to last.

Starmer hit the ground running upon entering Downing Street last Friday as Labour returned to power after 14 years following a landslide general election victory over Rishi Sunak´s Conservatives.

In his first few days, he made bold ministerial appointments, held a press conference at his official residence and delivered his first speech in parliament as premier.

Starmer then jetted off to Washington for a fortuitously timed Nato summit where he was able to burnish his statesman credentials alongside US President Joe Biden and other world leaders.

“He has wanted to do this for so long. Just getting on with it is a release and a relief for him,” Starmer´s biographer Tom Baldwin told foreign media in London on Thursday.

In Washington, Starmer declared he was “determined to renew Britain´s place on the world stage”, noting “there was a sense after Brexit that the UK had become too inward looking”.