AS editor of YourHarlow, I may have spoken to Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer more than most people in Harlow.

In this piece, I have come to neither bury him or praise him but to (quickly) reflect on his time as leader and what impression I got when I spoke to him.

In July 2020, I interviewed the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer when he visited Beard and Fitch in The Pinnacles.

As you may appreciate on these visits, the local press wait their turn for their interview. One has to be patient but firm with “his people”.

It was very much a fact finding mission for him and the interview was very much looking at challenges for business in the teeth of Covid. After our interview, Sir Keir asked me how my business and other independent local businesses were holding up.

I appreciated it as did other members of the independent newspaper community. I have never forgotten that very kind enquiry.

The next time I interviewed Sir Keir was in January 2023 at Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH). Again, when it was my term, he firstly asked, as the Harlow man, what my relationship was with the hospital?

It was a good question (well, he is an eminent KC). I explained that my late mother worked there as a staff nurse in the sixties and all four grandchildren were born there.

You sensed there was a leader with empathy and warmth. I have met a lot of politicians over the last fifty years or so. To be fair, that is usually the case.

Since then there have been further visits: Purford Green in 2024, Harlow Town Football Club in 2024 and then The Downs in 2025.

In March 2025, I was also invited by the Prime Minster, to a reception for regional media. The event was a fantastic gesture to recognise our work.

When we saw him in Harlow and whether it was discussing music lessons or serving up dinners, he seemed to enjoy engaging with the public. However, you also felt he was at his most comfortable extracting information from the public. That didn’t seem to have been the problem. It was the decisions he made thereafter.

We were always under the impression from July 2024 that this was a ten year plan/period of renewal. In many ways, we think that he is in a similar position to Margaret Thatcher in around July 1981.

We happen to think Labour may have lost their nerve. But when you have lost the dressing room, you have only one door to choose.

But many will detail mistake after mistake from winter fuel allowance to the appointment of Lord Mandelson.

As we said this is not a political obituary. It is very much skewed by a kind question at a Harlow factory in July 2020.

This reporter was studying A Level History then. One of the papers on 19th century politics referenced the nine Prime Ministers we had between 1852 and 1868.

But perhaps, we may want to compare Sir Keir to Anthony Eden (1 year and 279 days). In fact, history may say that he should have been an Attorney General or Foreign Secretary. Not a PM.

Whether Andy Burnham is the answer is a moot point. As a Spurs fan, I thought Thomas Frank was a great appointment…..

But the point of this article is to say thank you for asking after our business back in July 2020. It was the sign of a kind person and my mother, Staff Nurse Kathleen Casey, taught me to try and recognise the good in every person.

I am sure many will have their views and we were listening to eminent historian Sir Anthony Seldon and we feel there is little we disagree with.

Since 2013, YH has interviewed David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and now Sir Keir Starmer. Before then I was the first journalist to interview Gordon Brown after the “bigoted old woman” incident. I cam away (in 2010) thinking you seem so unhappy.

We wish Sir Keir Starmer well.