Keir Starmer: I didn’t believe the exit poll

LONDON — Keir Starmer admitted he didn’t believe the exit poll released Thursday evening which forecast the result of the general election.

Speaking in his first press conference as prime minister, Starmer said: “I was pleased to see that exit poll. I didn’t believe it until, like everybody else, I stayed up to watch every single result come in.”

The exit poll predicted Labour would win 410 seats and leave the Tories on 131 — in the end, Starmer’s party won 411 seats to Rishi Sunak’s 121, with the Liberal Democrats doing better than the forecast and Reform UK doing worse.

Asked if he was getting used to being addressed as “prime minister,” Starmer said he was happy to continue being called “Keir,” though he understood why officials would prefer to refer to him as PM, adding “it is actually important to them to use the title, because it reinforces in them what they are doing by way of public service.”

The new premier told journalists inside No. 10 he was still finding his way around Downing Street’s labyrinthine hallways and passages, saying: “I’ve got a basic understanding of the rooms I’ve used so far here, and that’s good, but there are plenty of hidden places I’ve yet to discover.”

Starmer was not speaking from the media briefing room costing more than £2.6 million which Boris Johnson’s government had planned to use for daily press conferences, an idea which was eventually abandoned.

The proposal was slammed for spending taxpayer money on a room wholly designed for government briefing, and became infamous when leaked footage from the room in 2021 showed Allegra Stratton, then Johnson’s spokesperson, laughing about Covid-19 lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street.

In continuation with a pledge made by Rishi Sunak’s outgoing government in the final days before the election campaign began, Starmer confirmed his new administration would compensate victims of the contaminated blood scandal, saying “it’s very important” given the promise had brought a “belated but at least better outcome” for those affected.

The PM also announced he would also visit all four nations of the U.K. from Sunday before holding a meeting with the nation’s metro mayors Tuesday.

“We have a majority in England, in Scotland and in Wales, and that is a clear mandate to govern for all four corners of the United Kingdom,” he said. Starmer added that he would meet the country’s respective first ministers “to establish a way of working across the United Kingdom that will be different and better to the way of working that we have had in recent years.”

The prime minister also chaired the first meeting of his Cabinet Saturday where he said mission delivery was a key point of discussion. “We will have mission delivery boards to drive through the change that we need,” he said, adding that he would chair the boards.

Starmer would not comment on whether he agreed with new Prisons Minister James Timpson, the CEO of the Timpson Group, that only a third of people in prison should definitely be there. “We do need to be clear about the way in which we use prisons,” the PM said. “We need to get away from the fact that for so many people,[they] come out of prison, they’re back in prison relatively quickly afterwards.”

The prime minster would also not confirm he would retain Amanda Pritchard as the chief executive of NHS England, given his criticism of the health service. “We have to be honest about this: it’s broken. And our job now is not just to say who broke it — the last government — but to get on and start to fix it.”

Starmer was eager to draw a clear distinction between his government and the Conservatives who went before. “This will be a politics and a government that is about delivery, is about service,” he said. “Self interest is yesterday’s politics.”