'No drama Starmer' How Labour plans to set tone as government that gets on and fixes things

When the exit polls are announced at 10pm tomorrow, Keir Starmer will be watching from Labour headquarters in London. "It's just another working night," he has told his senior team.

- Pippa Crerar

Putting the champagne on ice is not the Labour leader's style. "It's definitely not his thing," says one shadow cabinet minister.

"If he's even tempted to have a drink on election night it would be somebody handing him a bottle of beer." If the polls are accurate, just hours later he will be on his way back from Buckingham Palace to Downing Street, where he will address the nation from outside the famous black door of No 10.

Labour aides have played down the prospect of Starmer using the moment to set out his big vision of progressive liberalism. Instead, he will make a pragmatic argument for politics as a force for good that can make a material difference to people's lives.

The first hours are intended to set the tone for the new government. Those closest to Starmer say that unlike some of his more showy predecessors, he's not performative. "It's not politics as spectacle. It's politics designed to get better outcomes," says one insider.

When he was the director of public prosecutions, one of Starmer's proudest reforms was to replace paper files with digital ones. It may not have created many headlines, but it sped up the criminal justice process and meant fewer files got lost.

His focus on simply doing what works is also likely to be at the heart of his Labour administration if the party takes power this week. Taken in isolation, some measures may not seem particularly ambitious, even dull. But his team insists they will be the building blocks that create something substantial.

"He will govern in the way in which he's run the Labour party," says one shadow cabinet minister. "He's no drama Starmer. He's very methodical and analytical. He just gets on with things, he wants to fix problems."