She has been nicknamed Sir Keir Starmer‘s ‘reluctant First Lady’.
Instead of being accompanied by Lady Victoria Starmer to his manifesto launch today, the Labour leader sat next to cancer sufferer Nathaniel Dye and worked the room with his deputy Angela Rayner.
While she is ever-present on polling day and at Labour conferences, ‘Lady Vic’, as she is known fondly in party circles, has been missing from the election campaign completely.
The last major public event she attended with her husband appears to have been a state banquet at Buckingham Palace last November.
Party insiders have claimed that her absence is to protect the couple’s children because they are ‘completely freaked out by the idea of being in Downing Street and the public eye’. Their oldest son is also taking his GCSEs this month.
But some close to the Labour leader, branded a ‘political robot’ on the Sky News debate last night, believe that he would benefit from her support because his ‘no-nonsense’ and ‘sassy’ wife has no qualms about ‘telling people about the real Keir’.
Her straight-talking was clear from their first meeting in around 2000 when she slammed down the phone after yelling: ‘Who the f*** does he think he is?’ By 2007 they were married.
Sir Keir and Lady Victoria attend Buckingham Palace for the State Banquet held in honour of South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol last November – the last public event they attended together. Insiders say she is focused on their children, one of whom is doing his GCSEs
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer and deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner following the launch of his party’s manifesto at Co-op HQ in Manchester today
Victoria pictured with Sir Keir during a count for the 2017 general election. She has become a more public companion of her politico husband in recent years – but she still remains reluctant to be in the limelight
Sir Keir and Victoria with his parents Josephine and Rodney, taken on their wedding day in 2007
Sir Keir and Lady Victoria clapping for key workers outside their home in London in May 2020. Lady Vic works in the NHS and will not give up her job if her husband becomes PM
In an inauspicious start to their relationship, Britain’s prospective First Couple had an almighty row that ended with a shower of expletives from Mrs Starmer who then told him to get lost.
What sparked the cascade of swears? Her future husband asking if she was ‘100 per cent sure’ her work was correct.
Sir Keir later told Vogue: ‘It was absolutely classic Vic. Very sassy, very down to earth, no nonsense from anyone, including from me’.
Undeterred, he asked her down the pub to make up for his blunder. She gave him a second chance and fast forward to today they have been married for 17 years.
‘Lady Vic’ left law and retrained to be an occupational health therapist for the NHS in Camden, where they still live with their two teenage children.
Insiders have suggested that the shock election called by Rishi Sunak couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the family because the couple’s 15-year-old son is in the middle of his GCSE exams.
Last night Sir Keir gave a major hint about why his wife has stayed away, admitting that she had not wanted him to be a politician in the first place.
When he was accused of being a ‘political robot’, he said: ‘She thought it’d be far better to continue being a lawyer on a reasonable salary and not have all of the challenges that you get as a politician.
‘But I was clear in my mind, I wanted to come into politics because I wanted to serve my country.’
Labour has been quite clear that there will no interviews with Mrs Starmer before July 4.
And insiders have suggested that her absence is very much part of her husband’s plan, especially if he is heading to No 10 Downing Street – although some believe it is a mistake.
A Labour MP told The Telegraph: ‘It’s a real shame. Sir Keir is principled, tough, strategic and determined – the kind of man who is a planner and will make an excellent prime minister. But the trouble is, he doesn’t have the charisma for campaigning. He could really do with his wife telling people about the real Keir.’
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech on stage during the launching of Labour Party election manifesto, in Manchester
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks with cancer sufferer Nathaniel Dye who is a music teacher and a musician
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader speak with supporters
Asked about his biggest fear if he becomes prime minister, Sir Keir replied on the Sky News debate: ‘The only real fear I suppose I have is for my family.’
He said his son is almost 16 years old and his daughter 13.
Sir Keir said: ‘My only fear really is the impact it’s going to have on them. That’s why we never name them in public, never have a photoshoot with them, I want them to be able to walk to school and have their own lives.
‘I don’t fear the big decisions, in fact I relish the chance to change our country.’
One insider said that he wants privacy for his family, especially his children who are at ‘really difficult ages’
The insiders said: ‘They have got teenagers who are completely freaked out by the idea of being in Downing Street or in any way being in the public eye.
‘It has got pretty heavy recently with children’s shoes, representing the dead kids in Gaza, being left outside the Starmer house – Sir Keir is determined that his family won’t be dragged into any of this.’
Earlier this month the Labour leader said his wife won’t give up her work if he becomes Prime Minister.
He said of Victoria: ‘She’s absolutely going to carry on working, she wants to and she loves it. It’s also good for me because it gives me an insight into the NHS.’
Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria heading out to vote in north London in the May local elections
The pair share a kiss on stage during the 2023 Labour Party conference, also held in Liverpool
Victoria and Sir Keir walking into the 2022 Labour Party conference in Liverpool. She has not been afraid to be pictured in public – but is not seen as a typical ‘political spouse’
It isn’t the first time the potential future PM has spoken about his wife’s work in the health service – despite her keenness to remain out of the limelight.
Sir Keir said he wanted his teenage son’s education to be ‘untroubled’ by a potential move to No 10.
He said: ‘Our boy is in the middle of his GCSEs. At the moment I just want to create the environment where he can get on with what he’s got to get on with as untroubled as he can be.
‘He’s got 21 exams. My job is just to create space for him to get on with that.’
Unlike the incumbent prime minister Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty – a multi-millionaire heiress to IT firm Infosys’s $70billion (£54.9bn) fortune – little is known of Lady Victoria Starmer.
Sir Keir himself has said that she ‘has her own life and protects it vigorously’ – as he told the Sunday Mirror.
However, she is not an invisible spouse, and regularly appears with Sir Keir at public events and Labour party conferences. She stood on the doorstep to clap for carers, and stepped out with her husband to vote in the May local elections.
Comparisons have been made with Sarah Brown, wife of one-time Labour PM Gordon – someone who was content to be in the background with their own interests to pursue outside of their spouse’s politics.
Sir Keir met Victoria Alexander while the pair worked as lawyers. Their first contact was an awkward phone call that ended with her muttering ‘Who the f*** does he think he is?’ after he asked whether documents she had drawn up were accurate.
‘(She) then put the phone down on me. And quite right too,’ said Sir Keir in a 2020 Piers Morgan’s Life Stories interview.
Undeterred, the future Labour leader asked her on a date to the Lord Stanley pub in Camden in the early 2000s, and they married in 2007.
Lady Victoria is seen regularly in public with her husband – including here at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations for the late Queen Elizabeth II in June 2022
The couple pictured here in Liverpool during the 2023 Labour Party conference
They now share a £1.75million Kentish Town home with their two children – a teenager named Toby and a younger daughter whose name has not been made public.
Lady Victoria is Jewish, and Sir Keir has said he tries to uphold the Shabbat tradition of Friday night dinners as often as possible – despite being an atheist himself.
He previously told the Mirror: ‘She’s a streetwise grounded, brilliant, gorgeous woman who wants as far as she can to get on with her own life and to protect it.
‘She loves working for the NHS. She loves the team that she’s working with.
‘And she and I are doing our best to raise two happy and confident children and that matters hugely to us.’
Outside of her NHS work, she has also served as also a governor at her children’s school in Camden borough. In short, she has plenty to be getting on with should her husband become the new tenant in No 10.
As one insider presciently told The Telegraph in 2021: ‘If he ever gets into Downing Street, she’s going to be very much leading her own life.’