Keir Starmer’s rarely-seen spouse Victoria described as ‘sassy and streetwise’

He’s the one person Keir Starmer trusts implicitly but little is known about the woman who is almost guaranteed to be moving into 10 Downing Street in just over a week’s time.

Victoria Starmer, nee Alexander – Vic to her husband, Lady Vic to their inner circle – is mother to their two children, a 15-year-old boy and a daughter aged 13.

Their names have never been publicly released because of their parents’ desire to keep their lives as normal as possible.

While Vic, an NHS occupational therapist, is Keir’s rock, their first encounter was hardly romantic.

A decade younger than Keir at 51, she was then a solicitor who took a phone call from the senior barrister obsessively checking if documents for a court case were accurate.

“Yes, of course they are,” she told him. But Keir asked again: “Are you certain?” Turning to her colleagues while putting the phone down, she exploded, “Who the f*** does he think he is?”

Happily, their first meet-up a few week later was smoother. Keir and Victoria sat next to each other at a legal dinner and she took pity on him when the pescatarian was served meat.

Forking over some of her own vegetarian meal, they got chatting and arranged a first date at the Lord Stanley pub, Camden.

Their son has denounced his dad’s choice of venue as the least romantic he can imagine but Vic laughed: “At least he walked me to the bus stop afterwards and waved at me when it left, so he got a tick for that.”

Keir’s friends fell for Vic as hard as he did, with one telling her that she made Keir complete. He spontaneously popped the question on holiday in Santorini and they chose a ring the next day.

Two hundred guests, including Keir’s four best men, saw them get married on May 6, 2007 at the Fennes Estate in Essex.

The bride gave her own emotional speech before her groom dedicated his to her – revealing later: “I wanted Vic to know how much I thought of her, what I could see in her, the love I got from her.”

A year after their honeymoon on the Amalfi coast in Italy – during which Keir lost his wedding ring and had to scrabble through a bin to find it – their son arrived.

Being handed a screaming baby was like landing in another world for Keir. Armed with a tiny outfit and nappies, he said: “My hands shook and my back was covered in sweat. There were a lot of buttons.

“Every time I moved one of his limbs, I thought I was going to break it or social services would arrive and declare me an unfit parent.”

Marriage brought a whole new family and Keir has spoken lovingly of Vic’s parents, who are Jewish and originally from Poland. Vic has been to the village just outside of Kolo from which they fled before the Second World War. She is a member of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood and she and Keir observe Friday night prayers.

The death of Vic’s community doctor mum Barbara in 2020, while Keir was campaigning for the leadership, affected him deeply. She had fallen down some stairs and died days later.

“This was a woman who had been in really good health, completely independent, who was really close to her grandchildren. She meant the world to all of us,” Keir told biographer Tom Baldwin.

Watching his wife losing her mum was “even harder” than the loss of his own parents, Jo and Rod.

“I felt helpless because I couldn’t reach into the space to stop her hurting. There was nothing I could say to make this right. All I could do was show her how much she mattered to me,” he said.

In the wake of Barbara’s death, Keir turned his office in the family’s Kentish Town home into a bedroom for Vic’s father, now 95, so they could look after him.

While Vic has occasionally appeared next to Keir at Labour conference and was pictured clapping for NHS workers on their doorstep during the pandemic, her natural instinct is to eschew the limelight.

She has a background in Labour activism since studying law and sociology at Cardiff University, where she became president of the students’ union – like Neil Kinnock 30 years earlier.

She volunteered at Tony Blair ’s campaign HQ in 1997 and was involved in canvassing. When she qualified as a lawyer, Vic worked for a firm in Soho that specialised in street crime. She would often spend the early hours meeting clients in police stations.

When she met Keir she had moved over to less emotionally fraught fraud cases, then later changed career to take up her role in the NHS.

“She is determined to keep working, her job keeps her sane,” a pal said.

Vic’s work is a few minutes’ walk from their home and she has told her husband that, if he gets to Number 10, “I won’t want to leave Kentish Town”.

Their daughter is also unimpressed about moving but Vic has also told friends: “We’ll do what we need to do.” A friend said: “Victoria will stand by her man, the kids will use the back door.”

Pals say the Starmers’ home life is much like any other busy family.

Vic gets exasperated by Keir’s elaborate Saturday night cooking, which uses up every pan in the house, and they take turns to sort out their cat Jo-Jo’s territorial skirmishes.

While their son has been sitting his GCSEs, his mum has been keeping him fuelled with fried egg sandwiches.

Campaigning has taken its toll on Keir, as he says he “hates” being away from his wife and kids.

And it is clear his family ground him with their normality, as he gushed “love and Vic are two sides of the same coin”, adding: “It sounds naff but we’re made for each other.

“If anything, our love gets stronger every day. She’s gorgeous, sassy, grounded. She makes me complete, who I really am.”

Meanwhile, Cherie Blair, memorably caught in her nightie the morning after Labour’s 1997 victory, gave some advice: “Some people will dislike you not for anything you do but what you represent. The most important thing is to be true to yourself.”