Meet Keir Starmer’s sassy wife, ‘cool North London’ Lady Victoria, and why she is dreading life in Number 10
FOR a “First Lady” said to have been “dreading” exchanging her normal life for Downing Street, it has been a baptism of fire.
Blinking as cameras flashed, Lady Victoria Starmer, 51, emerged from a jet in Washington DC this week looking the epitome of style and elegance.
In classic white frock and heels, her first overseas engagement with husband Sir Keir was a Nato summit.
During a dinner at the White House hosted by Joe and Jill Biden, Victoria had the chance to mingle with other world leaders and their partners.
Before that, there was last week’s walk along Downing Street, with the nation scrutinising a woman many know next to nothing about.
Appearing relaxed, she air-kissed flag-waving supporters as her husband entered No10’s black door as PM.
In comparison to Keir’s somewhat staid public image, “sassy” Victoria was a splash of colour in a £275 Me+Em dress and £295 Russell & Bromley silver slingback heels.
Many watching on TV must have wondered where the woman Keir calls his “rock” had been for much of the gruelling six-week election campaign.
Lovestruck teenagers
Yet Vic, as she is known to her husband, has made it clear she wants to “lead her own life” despite living above the shop in No10.
Don’t expect any cosy kitchen chats with broadcasters or at-home pieces with glossy magazines. Victoria has never done an interview, with the PM saying “we’ll keep it that way”.
The couple’s two children — a son, 16, and a 13-year-old daughter — are also being shielded from the public spotlight.
Before he was elected, Keir said: “I am worried about my children. That is probably the single thing that does keep me awake — how we will protect them through this.”
While her husband gets on with running the country, Victoria will continue working as an NHS occupational therapist.
As if to underline her independence from politics, Victoria left her husband to the affairs of state last Saturday to enjoy a day at the races.
While the Prime Minister is a football man, Victoria’s passion is horse racing.
She was said to be reluctant to leave the family home in Kentish Town, North London, where she and Keir have lived since they married 17 years ago.
They have a close circle of friends there and were regulars at their local pub The Pineapple.
On Christmas Day, the Prime Minister posted a picture of the couple on Twitter/X with the caption: “Traditional Christmas drinks with neighbours in the local.”
One parent who lives in the area described Victoria as a “cool North London mum” who wears “dark skinny jeans, suede ankle boots and silk shirts”.
A friend said of the move to No10: “She is dreading but accepting of it.”
Victoria is even said to be worried about how JoJo, the family cat, will settle in alongside Larry, the mischievous feline whose domain is Downing Street.
Such was her absence from the campaign trail that one columnist pondered whether she would be the “invisible First Lady”.
When she was pictured with Keir at one of Taylor Swift’s recent Wembley shows, a Labour insider called the image the “standout” moment of the election campaign.
Looking glamorous in tasselled waistcoat, Victoria, and her husband, grinned for the camera like a couple of lovestruck teenagers at their first gig.
For his part, Keir said the image had brought the joy she brings him out into the open.
She is sassy, down-to-earth and gives brilliant advice
Keir Starmer
“That photo tells you everything,” he revealed. “She is my rock. We are like two sides of the same coin.
“She is sassy, down-to-earth and gives brilliant advice. We just bring out the best in each other. She certainly brings out the best in me.”
Their first encounter was somewhat less romantic, though. A decade older than his wife, Keir was a senior barrister and Victoria a solicitor when they first spoke by phone.
A stickler for detail, he was obsessively checking whether docu-ments being prepared for a court case were accurate.Victoria insisted: “Yes, of course they are.”
Her future husband asked: “But are you sure?”
Exasperated, Victoria told him: “Yes, I’m certain.”
As she put the phone down, and with Keir still listening, she let fly to colleagues: “Who the f*** does he think he is?”
The future PM later mused: “You might think ‘not the best of starts’ but it was absolute classic Vic. No nonsense from anyone, including me.”
A few weeks later Victoria had the chance to find out more about the diligent barrister when they were sat next to each other at a legal dinner.
When pescatarian Keir was served meat his vegetarian future wife shared her food with him. The pair then arranged to meet for a drink at the Lord Stanley pub in Camden, North London.
Starmer recalls Victoria saying of the evening: “At least he walked me to the bus stop afterwards and waved at me when it left, so he got a tick for that.”
The inauspicious beginnings turned into a love affair that endures.
Victoria grew up in Gospel Oak, North West London.
Her mum Barbara was a community doctor, while dad Bernard was an economics lecturer who became a chartered accountant.
Her older sister Judith is a teacher. Barbara, who died after a fall in February 2020, grew up in Doncaster and passed her love of horse racing on to her daughter.
A large photo of the winning post at the city’s famous racecourse today hangs in the Starmer family’s kitchen.
She would venture into politics
The PM, an avid Arsenal fan, said recently: “Vic’s mum had horse racing in her blood and Vic loves it, too. She loves flat racing.”
Her father’s Jewish family came to Britain from Poland before World War Two.
Victoria has travelled to their ancestral village near Kolo where almost half the population were Jewish before the Nazi Holocaust.
She attended £25,000-a-year Channing School for Girls, in North London. It now faces being hit by her husband’s plans to charge VAT on school fees.
At Cardiff University she studied law and sociology. And she would venture into politics years before her future husband.
Becoming the university’s education and welfare officer in 1993, she fought against reforms proposed by then Education Secretary, Conservative John Patten.
They included a pledge to end the union closed shop, where workers have to be a member of a certain union to be employed.
It helped win her own landslide victory to become student union president the following year.
The student newspaper said: “Vicky Alexander’s ‘windswept’ look must have played its part in her massive majority.”
The report added that her “excellent manifesto did swing the electorate and proved she was a winner”.
An interview with the student paper in 1995 produced the startling revelation that the future Lady Starmer kept a pet rat in her baggy jumper.
Captured on film for posterity by photographer Rob Watkins, the large rodent can be seen peering nonchalantly from Victoria’s pullover sleeve. Rob remembers the student union boss as being “witty and professional”.
She would dabble in politics again in 1997 when she volunteered in Tony Blair’s campaign headquarters.
Later she qualified as a solicitor, at first specialising in street crime in Soho, central London, before switching to fraud.
She makes me complete, who I really am
Keir Starmer
Keir spontaneously proposed to Victoria on a holiday on the Greek island of Santorini in 2004.
Victoria replied: “Won’t we need a ring, Keir?”
They wed on May 6, 2007, at a Georgian manor house on the Fennes Estate in Essex — with four best men.
Their honeymoon on Italy’s Amalfi Coast was “the most romantic getaway”, according to Keir.
Yet the mood was dampened when he lost his wedding ring and had to rummage through a bin of used paper hand towels to find it.
When Keir left his role as Director of Public Prosecutions in 2013, Victoria tried to dissuade him from getting into politics.
He recalled: “My wife was ringing adverts in the papers about well-paid lawyers’ jobs. But I said, ‘No, I want to serve my country’.”
After almost 20 years of marriage, Keir says their love “gets stronger every day”.
The new PM added: “It sounds naff, but we’re made for each other. She makes me complete, who I really am.
“She and I are doing our best to raise two happy and confident children and that matters hugely to us.”
A former Labour adviser said the Starmers had moved away from the “1980s” stance of “I am the man and here is my political trophy wife” during the election campaign.
Ayesha Hazarika added that it showed that Victoria was “a modern, professional, established woman in her own right”.
Despite dinners at the White House and a new life at No10, Lady Starmer’s heart is likely to remain in Kentish Town.