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15 April 2020 / Patrick Allen
Issue: 7884 / Categories: Opinion , Profession
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Labour under Keir Starmer: reasons to be cheerful?

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Sir Keir Starmer’s appointment marks the return of an effective opposition, says Patrick Allen
Sir Keir Starmer QC was finally appointed last month as leader of the Labour Party with the ending of the interminably long election process.

This is welcome news for the country and all who care about progressive causes. For the past four months we have had no effective opposition to the government and the last leader presided over the worst result that Labour has achieved in an election since 1935.

But the legal profession should be especially pleased that Keir Starmer will now occupy one of the most influential roles in politics. Starmer is someone with an intimate knowledge of the legal system and the courts and has every chance of becoming Prime Minister.

Legal career

Starmer brings many good qualities and wide experience to the role of leader of the opposition. First, his legal background and training. He enjoyed an eminent career at the bar, becoming a QC at the age of

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Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
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