With three weeks to go until the general election, it looks increasingly likely that Sir Keir Starmer will be the UK’s next prime minister.
Opinion poll after opinion poll has shown Labour commanding a huge lead over the Conservatives, suggesting Sir Keir will have the keys to No 10 come 5 July.
Moving into Downing Street with Sir Keir will be his wife, Victoria, a former lawyer who now works in occupational health for the NHS.
While the public has got to know Sir Keir better in recent months through a series of emotive TV and newspaper interviews, much less is known about Ms Starmer, who prefers to keep a low profile.
Ms Starmer, known affectionately by friends as Lady Victoria, is the daughter of a Polish-Jewish father and a mother who converted to the faith.
Sir Keir told The Jewish Chronicle in an interview in March last 2021, the family continues to observe the tradition of Friday night dinner at home. They also attend London’s Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood, despite his own atheism.
A born and raised Londoner, Ms Starmer grew up in Gospel Oak in the north of the capital, just a stone’s throw away from where the couple now lives with their two children.
Ms Starmer, working as a solicitor at the time, met her future husband while he was working as a barrister at Doughty Street chambers in the early 2000s, prior to his appointment as director of public prosecutions.
Recalling their first meeting during his appearance on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories in 2020, Sir Keir said: “I was doing a case in court and it all depended on whether the documents were accurate.
“I[asked my colleagues] who actually drew up these documents, they said a woman called Victoria, so I said let’s get her on the line.”
He duly questioned her about the papers concerned and, just before hanging up, heard her mutter: “Who the f*** does he think he is?”
Despite that inauspicious start, Sir Keir subsequently asked her out on a date to the Lord Stanley pub in Camden. From there their relationship blossomed and the couple later married in 2007.
They still live in the borough in a £1.75m townhouse within Mr Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency.
Ms Starmer left the legal profession to serve as a governor at her children’s school and to work in her NHS role – a job Sir Keir said she loves and plans to continue even if he becomes PM.
Unlike Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty – who introduced him at the last Tory party conference – and the wives of previous prime ministers, Ms Starmer has chosen mostly to stay out of the political limelight, making only a few public appearances.
She took part in the 80th anniversary service to remember the Battle of Britain in September 2020 and, a year later, Labour’s previous party conference in Brighton.
“Onlookers praised her quiet confidence and working-mum chic – previously photographed in leather trousers and trainers… with hair shimmery enough to rival the Duchess of Cambridge’s,” recorded one particularly gushing account of that sighting in Tatler.
The Daily Telegraph also took an interest in her at the same point, with a Labour insider telling Camilla Tominey: “She’s quite sassy in that she’s quite unbothered by what he’s doing. If he ever gets into Downing Street, she’s going to be very much leading her own life.
“She’s not going to be in the spotlight like Cherie Blair, but more of a background Sarah Brown type figure,” the friend added.
“They have a great dynamic – she spends quite a lot of time taking the mickey out of him because he can be so serious. I’ve never known her to be particularly political – she’s always had her own interests.”
Ms Starmer has since attended several other events with Sir Keir, including the Euro 2020 Final at Wembley Stadium last July, a candlelit vigil for the murdered Sarah Everard and the Wimbledon women’s singles semi-finals on Centre Court on 7 July in 2022.
Sporting dark glasses in the Royal Box, Ms Starmer appeared to be gripped by the match between Ons Jabeur and Tatjana Maria, which just so happened to take place on the very day the Tories had finally succeeded in forcing Boris Johnson’s resignation on what proved to be an operatic day in Westminster.
Ms Starmer has continued to keep a low profile during the election campaign and has turned down requests for interviews, comments and “off the record” briefings by friends, according to The Daily Telegraph.
“We aren’t encouraging pieces on her,” the Labour leader’s office told the paper. “Mrs Starmer will NOT be giving interviews.”
The couple places a high value on their privacy and Sir Keir has often spoken about protecting his family if he becomes PM.
”I think the biggest concern I have is about the impact it has on my family,” Sir Keir told The Sunday Mirror when asked how his wife copes with being married to a prominent politician.
