Keir Starmer has stepped down and Andy Burnham is, in all likelihood, about to walk through the door of No 10. I have had the rare privilege of working closely with both men. For five years I served as a chief prosecutor while Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutions (DPP). And for much of Burnham’s time as mayor of Greater Manchester, I worked with him on violent crime, working-class representation and community cohesion.

I have watched both lead, up close and under real pressure. And as the country changes hands, I keep returning to the single quality that separates them – because it happens to be the quality Britain needs most right now.

We are living through a trust recession. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found that nearly seven in 10 people believe their leaders are misleading them, and the leaders who lost the most trust were national government figures.

Let me be clear about Starmer, because I admire him. He is forensic, principled and serious in a way our politics badly needs more of. As DPP he transformed the prosecution service, and I never once doubted his integrity or his sense of public duty. He will leave office a fundamentally decent man, which, in this era, is no small thing.

But connection did not come naturally to him, and I saw that up close. He led with argument and detail where the moment often cried out for warmth. He could win the case........

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