The camera phone shot of U.K. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer at a Taylor Swift concert in London has rightly been described by his allies as the ¡°standout moment¡± of his election campaign. No longer the stiff lawyer in a suit, Starmer seemed to have shed years in a tender pose circulated widely on social media.

For the first and perhaps only time, Starmer looked like the winsome heir to former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Labour¡¯s photogenic three-times election winner.

Pictures of the current Labour leader in a soccer kit tackling opponents have also been doing the rounds ¡ª possibly to generate a more macho vibe. Starmer has let it be known that he will continue to play five-a-side every week if he is elected prime minister on Thursday. The message is that, as a still-vigorous 61-year-old married to a National Health Service employee, he is the man of the hour ¡ª soccer, aka ¡°football,¡± and the NHS being the United Kingdom¡¯s joint national religions.

In the course of a long campaign, the Labour leader has sought to reassure voters that he represents an end to the ¡°chaos¡± of the fractious ruling Conservative Party. His other constant refrain is that he has consigned his own party¡¯s radical socialists to the waste bin of history.

That is no mean achievement, yet still the voters have not, until now, warmed to Starmer. His personal satisfaction ratings are lower than two failed opposition leaders from his party ¡ª Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 and Neil Kinnock in 1992. As one television audience member asked despairingly of both Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Conservative candidate, are they ¡°really the best we¡¯ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?¡± The Labour leader remains a work in progress.

A more subtle propaganda service has been provided by a Starmer biography penned by a former Labour spokesman, Tom Baldwin. Originally conceived as a campaign autobiography in the style of former U.S. President Barack Obama¡¯s ¡°Dreams from My Father,¡± Starmer abandoned this project, fearing charges of vanity. The biography nonetheless paints a sympathetic portrait of the Labour leader¡¯s rise to the top from distressing family circumstances through decency and hard work.

Starmer¡¯s difficult relationship with his distant father and the care he provided for his ailing mother strike an authentic emotional chord. In other words, there is much more to him than being a lefty London lawyer who maneuvered his way into the establishment ¡ª and the party crown.

Yet whenever Tory Cabinet ministers raise their heads above the cloud of gloom generated by their disastrous campaign, they take consolation from the fact that...