Last Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after he and his wife, Victoria, walked along Downing Street and into their new life, Keir Starmer held a rare weekend cabinet meeting, followed by his first press conference as prime minister.
For Victoria Starmer, however, it was a very different day. Though doubtless as sleep deprived as her husband after the drama of Thursday night’s election results, she chose not to spend the day recovering – or packing. Instead, she headed to Sandown Park racecourse in Surrey with friends, where she watched the Coral Eclipse horse race.
It is hard to imagine a spin doctor choosing a day at the races as the first public appearance for a new Labour PM’s wife. But as Britain is coming to learn, the Starmers intend to do things differently. Victoria Starmer has been a huge flat-racing fan since childhood, having been introduced to the sport by her mother, who grew up near Doncaster racecourse. Her husband may have a big job, but she has her own life and interests – and she fully plans to maintain them.
None of this should come as a surprise after Keir Starmer’s four years as Labour leader, and the intense six-week period of the general election campaign. Victoria Starmer – Vic to her husband and friends – has never given a newspaper interview, never invited TV cameras into the family kitchen or taken a journalist on the school run and has never introduced her husband at party conference.
Instead, while she willingly appears by his side at political events, and this week flew with the new PM to Washington while he attended the Nato summit, there is a hard limit to her public role, “and we’ll keep it that way because we want that boundary”, Keir Starmer said last month. “She wants to get on with her life.”
That obsessive privacy is observed even more strictly for the couple’s children, a boy aged 16 and a girl of 13. The Starmers have never allowed them to be photographed or even confirmed their names, due to their concern over “how we will protect them through this”, Keir Starmer told the BBC recently.
Can they really expect to hold that line? They don’t see why not, says Tom Baldwin, who as Starmer’s semi-authorised biographer has spent a great deal of time with the family. “Vic will do the official functions and the international events, but she is pretty determined to carry on going to work” – a former solicitor, she now works in occupational health at a London hospital. “They are a tight unit, and they are pretty determined people.”
Above all, says Baldwin, “they really want [their kids] to have as normal a time as possible. He’s talked about losing sleep over this, and I believe him.”
We can assume it is not shyness that makes Vic Starmer shun the spotlight. The young Victoria Alexander grew up in a comfortable middle-class home near Hampstead Heath in north London, the daughter of Bernard, an accountant whose Jewish family had fled Poland before the second world war, and Barbara, a GP who converted to her husband’s faith.
After her schooling at a smart private girls school, she studied law and sociology at Cardiff University, where in 1994 she was elected the sabbatical student union president – a position previously held by Neil Kinnock.
“The three words on my ballot were ‘Make My Day’. Thank you Cardiff for doing it,” the 21-year-old “Vicky” told the student newspaper after her win. Her acceptance speech was described as “fucking corny, fucking excellent”. Photos from the time show her addressing a crowd, microphone in hand, or performing karaoke with a friend. “Sharp-suited Vicky is a far cry from the image of a scruffy subversive as she bustles between meetings with college officials and accountants,” read a newspaper profile.
She became a solicitor and volunteered for the Labour party before the 1997 election. It was through work in the early 2000s that she met her husband, who is a decade older and was at the time a hotshot human rights barrister. In a story he has told repeatedly, he phoned her firm demanding to speak to the solicitor who had prepared a brief for court, and quizzed her over whether it was really correct. “Who the fuck does he think he is?” Victoria said, as she replaced the receiver, which – by design or not – he overheard.
“You might think ‘not the best of starts,’ but it was absolutely classic Vic,” he said. “Very sassy, very down-to-earth, no nonsense from anyone – including from me.” They married in 2007, when Keir was almost 45; their son was born a year later, their daughter in 2010.
Her influence behind the scenes is clear. Though neither is particularly religious, the Starmers try to ringfence family time for Friday prayers with her father, who is very close to the couple’s children and was among the crowds in Downing Street last week. Above all, it is her advice that he seeks out on important decisions, says Baldwin. “He really, really trusts her decision-making.”
“She is a pretty political person – she was political before Keir was – and she understands politics,” he says. “She just doesn’t want to be part of it. She wants to be able to go and have coffee with her friends, she loves her friends at work. She’s determined to carry on as normal a life as possible.”
In their Kentish Town kitchen, Baldwin points out, there are family photographs, but none of Starmer meeting famous politicians or even his beloved Arsenal footballers – “it’s not a Keir Starmer shrine”. Instead, dominating the wall, is one large photo of her beloved Doncaster racecourse. “It’s her space, and she protects her space.”
