In just over a week’s time, Keir Starmer may well be instructing the moving vans to pull up outside Downing Street so he can pick up the keys to Number 10.
The Labour leader has already confirmed that, if his party wins, he and his family – wife Victoria Starmer, their 15-year-old son and their 13-year-old daughter – will be moving into the most famous address in the UK, uprooting their lives and transporting their belongings 3.5 miles down the road from Kentish Town to Westminster.
Vic will continue her job as an occupational therapist at the hospital near their North London home, and she and Keir plan to keep their children’s lives as normal as possible.
Their family home is near to the constituency Keir has retained since 2015, and they will hold onto it throughout Keir’s prime ministership.
One thing the Labour leader hasn’t addressed yet is what becomes of the family’s cat, Jojo? Hopefully he’ll become best pals with Larry the Downing Street mouser…
Where is Keir Starmer’s seat?
The Labour leader has held onto the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in central London since he first stood for election in 2015, taking over from Frank Dobson when the veteran Labour MP stood down.
The constituency covers most of the London borough of Camden, stretching from Covent Garden and Bloomsbury in the West End to Camden Town and Highgate. It takes in Gospel Oak, King’s Cross, St Pancras, Regent’s Park and Euston station, as well as the University of London and a number of teaching hospitals.
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Evening Standard / eyevine)
Holborn and St Pancras borders Islington North, the seat held – until now – by Keir’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, who was suspended then expelled from the Labour party over his comments made in the wake of the explosive Equalities and Human Rights Commission report, which found Labour had broken the law by failing to tackle antisemitism within the party.
Labour’s National Executive Committee declined to endorse Corbyn as a candidate, so he is now standing as an independent at the 2024 election.
What is Keir Starmer’s majority?
Holborn and St Pancras constituency has voted Labour since 1983, and it’s currently ranked 77th in the party’s list of safe seats. When Starmer was elected in 2015 he won 29,062 votes – 52.9% of the share, and up from 25,198 won by Frank Dobson for Labour in 2010.
In the general election of 2017, Keir won a whopping 70.1% of the votes cast with 41,343 voters putting their X in his box. His majority dipped slightly in the next election of 2019 with 36,641 votes cast for him, or 64.5% of the share.
Could Keir Starmer lose his seat?
In short: no. Not unless something crazy happens in the next week, and even then we wouldn’t waste our money putting a bet on it. The Tories might, of course. Starmer has a comfortable majority of nearly 37,000 and with 11 other candidates from the other parties – including Nick the Incredible Flying Brick from the Monster Raving Loony Party – standing, it’s virtually impossible for anyone other than the Labour leader to win.
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Philip Coburn)
Rishi Sunak, on the other hand, is definitely at risk of losing his North Yorkshire seat of Richmond and Northallerton, after a June 26 mega-poll put the Tories on course for near-wipeout.
Sunak and 20 of his top Cabinet members all face the humiliating prospect of losing their seats if the poll by Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus is correct. Under their projection, the total number of Conservative MPs will be 60, pushing the party into third place behind the Lib Dems on 71,
Labour are set to win 450 seats, which would give them an unprecedented majority of 250, while Reform UK could win 18 seats, including those of Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Lee Anderson.
Keep up to speed with the latest polling with our live tracker.