The provided text is an opinion piece that draws parallels between Sir Keir Starmer’s perceived reserved nature and the experience of having a strict, antisocial father. The author suggests that Starmer’s childhood experiences may have contributed to his sense of being an outsider and different.The provided text is an opinion piece that draws parallels between Sir Keir Starmer’s perceived reserved nature and the experience of having a strict, antisocial father. The author suggests that Starmer’s childhood experiences may have contributed to his sense of being an outsider and different. The text includes references to psychology, such as the term “armchair psychologists,” and mentions the “strange” and “authoritarian” nature of Starmer’s father. The author also refers to the “mid-20th century” as a time when such fathers were prevalent. The author provides examples of childhood experiences that may have shaped Starmer’s personality, such as his inability to rebel against his father and his feelings of disconnect and difference. The author also mentions the potential for such childhood experiences to lead to feelings of isolation and lack of fulfillment later in life. Overall, the text provides an analysis of Starmer’s personality based on the author’s own experiences and observations, as well as references to psychology and history.
IThe fate of every new prime minister is to undergo analyses by armchair psychologists. I imagine that Sir Keir Starmer, a shy and reserved man, will find it a more nauseating experience than most.
He is strangely familiar, but still, to anyone now in their sixties who had a strict, antisocial father. Such children, unable to rebel (because you didn’t), grew up feeling like outsiders, disconnected, different. The modern expression for that would be “different.”
Having a strange, authoritarian father was the bane of the mid-20th century, especially for boys. Such men were plentiful—damaged, disappointed, unfulfilled, isolated, and incapable of showing love.
Last week I happened to read Ade Edmondson’s memoir and Tom Baldwin’s biography of Starmer back to back. The descriptions of their fathers and
