The PM is portrayed as a bit part player at No 10. That isn’t true: but he must grab the reins and create a government in his own image

• Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer, The Biography
  

“When people say I might be gone in a year or two, they’re just making the mistake others have made about me in the past,” Keir Starmer told me recently, eyes unblinking behind his glasses.

Certainly, the political careers of those who made this mistake of underestimating him now rot in graves dotted around Westminster. They include not only three Conservative prime ministers, but also his immediate predecessor as Labour leader and countless others who failed to realise how ruthless Starmer can be until – for them – it was too late.