Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has abandoned plans to write an autobiography and will return a hefty advance to his publisher.
Sir Keir said last year that he had begun penning a book about his life and political vision during the Covid lockdowns.
A spokesman for Mr Starmer said the book “lays out his plans for a renewed Britain, and why he believes in the vital importance of putting integrity back into public life”.
But he has decided not to proceed with the project – returning an £18,000 advance he received from HarperCollins.
The author of a planned biography on the Labour leader said it was partly due to “time pressure” on being leader of the opposition in the run-up to the general election expected next year.
Instead, Sir Keir is cooperating with a biography planned by former senior Labour adviser Tom Baldwin, to be released before voters go to the polls in 2024.
“I was asked to help Keir put together an autobiography,” the former comms chief told The Times. “That hasn’t happened, not least because of the time pressure on him as leader of the opposition. However, I have started work on a biography.”
It comes as Tory cabinet minister Mel Stride warned that a “huge amount” of tactical voting hit the Conservatives at last week’s local elections in England.
The work and pensions secretary said: “Certainly in my patch [in Devon] I saw it in the Greens standing back for the Lib Dems, [who were] standing back for the Greens and Labour and so on”.
Mr Stride said anti-Tory tactical voting “could be unhelpful to us as a party” at a general election. “But I don’t think it will be quite as harmful as it has been in these particular local elections.”
Labour and Liberal Democrats are understood to have shifted campaign resources out of council wards where they were in third place to focus on targets and give those in second a better chance of defeating Tory candidates.
Sir Keir has repeatedly said there will be no deals with the SNP after an election. But Labour has not explicitly ruled out a coalition with the Lib Dems in the event of a hung parliament.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey suggested that another referendum on a proportional representation (PR) voting system would be a key demand for a coalition. “PR is absolutely on the table for the Liberal Democrats, of course it is,” he told the BBC on Sunday.
