During the general election campaign and for much of her husband’s tenure as Labor leader, Victoria Starmer kept a low profile. A discretion he intends to show at 10 Downing Street.
Her profile contrasts with Rishi Sunak’s wife and Indian billionaire heiress Akshatha Murthy. Many Britons no doubt discovered the face of Victoria Starmer, the wife of the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, Keir Starmer, this Friday, July 5th. This tall 51-year-old brunette is rarely in front of photographers and is committed to maintaining the privacy of her family, sharing the life of the new leader of the Labor government for more than twenty years. He walked her hand in hand to Buckingham Palace and then to 10 Downing Street, now her home. And despite the assumption of her husband’s position, she intends to continue her work in the public health service.
Understated is definitely the adjective that best describes Victoria Starmer. Since Keir Starmer took over as Labor leader in 2020, and again during the election campaign, the Briton has never given an interview. His public speeches are very few. with her husband at the polling station on election days, in the stands at the Wimbledon tennis tournament or for dinners and official receptions at Buckingham Palace. The only notable exception was in late 2023, when she accompanied Keir Starmer on stage at the party’s annual conference wearing a crimson dress in Labor colours.
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Meeting at the lawyer’s office
Raised in North London, Victoria Starmer, née Alexander, has an economics professor father, a Polish Jew, and a doctor mother. He studied law and sociology at Cardiff University, where he led the student union. He later campaigned for the Labor Party under Tony Blair. A few years ago he worked as a lawyer in a law firm before joining the National Health Service (NHS).
The new prime minister told several times about their meeting. While he was a lawyer, Victoria was responsible for providing him with documents, and he called her on the phone to check the seriousness of her work, in an apparently unfriendly way, because just before hanging up, she announced: He is? A false start that would eventually turn into a love story after first meeting at the Lord Stanley pub in Camden, North London. The couple married in 2007 in Essex and have two children, now teenagers: a 16-year-old boy named Toby and a 13-year-old girl, whose first name has never been released. Until now, the family lived in Kentish Town, the North London constituency where Keir Starmer is elected.
While the prime minister says he is not a believer, Victoria strives to pass on the Jewish tradition to their children, attending synagogue with them and organizing weekly dinners on Friday evenings.
“Feet on the Ground”
Keir Starmer is never short of compliments for ‘Wick’, saying Vogue: at the beginning of the year “very impudent” and “feet on the ground”. Considered an asset to her husband by many of the Labor leader’s advisers, the horse racing enthusiast has nevertheless kept a safe distance from the media during the election campaign, with Keir Starmer confirming she wanted to prioritize their son as he made the move. year of his final high school exams.
However, he failed to prevent the press from discussing his testimony in court in mid-June when three pro-Palestinian activists were on trial outside Starmer House for demonstrating against Labour’s stance on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. “I didn’t feel well, to be honest. I was worried and uncomfortable,” she said.
Which “first lady” will she be at 10 Downing Street after Keir Starmer said she would “without doubt” continue to work for the NHS? Probably not Carrie Johnson, who is everywhere with Boris and has been nicknamed “Carrie Antoinette” by her detractors. Probably not Sherry Blair, a brilliant lawyer, but whose somewhat off-the-cuff statements sometimes put Tony Blair to shame. But will he be as self-righteous as Margaret Thatcher’s husband, whose mantra was: “Always present, never there.” Either way, Keir and Victoria Starmer intend to “fiercely protect” their children from the upcoming media spotlight.
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Source: Le Figaro
