Who is Keir Starmer, Labour leader favoured to win UK's July 4 election?

Dutiful, managerial, a bit dull Keir Starmer is no one's idea of a firebrand politician.

The Labour Party hopes that is just what Britain wants and needs after 14 turbulent years of Conservative rule. Starmer, the centre-left party's 61-year-old leader, is the current favourite to win the country's July 4 election.

Starmer has spent four years as opposition leader dragging his social democratic party from the left towards the political middle ground. His message to voters is that a Labour government will bring change of the reassuring rather than scary kind.

A vote for Labour is a vote for stability economic and political, Starmer said after Prime Minister Rishi Sunakcalled the election on May 22.

If opinion polls giving Labour a consistent double-digit lead are borne out on election day, Starmer will become Britain's first Labour prime minister since 2010.

A lawyer who served as chief prosecutor for England and Wales between 2008 and 2013, Starmer is caricatured by opponents a