Who is Lady Victoria: Keir Starmer's wife & soon-to-be UK's first lady

After a landslide win, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is all set to become the next Prime Minister of the UK, dethroning Rishi Sunak.

With responsibility, Starmer will also get the UK Prime Minister’s official residence – 10 Downing Street in the City Westminster, London – where he will move with his wife and UK’s new first Lady, Victoria Starmer.

They will move to Number 10 from a £1.75m townhouse in Kentish Town within Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency.

A lot is being talked about Keir, who climbed his way to a historic victory, but not much is known about his wife Victoria.

Who is Victoria Starmer, UK PM’s wife & country’s first lady?

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Lady Victoria or Lady Vic is how Starmer’s wife is known affectionately among friends.  

She was completely off the sight from Keir Starmer’s election campaign and was nowhere to be seen in his manifesto launch.  

According to a report by Dailymail, the last major public event which Victoria Starmer attended with Keir was a state banquet at Buckingham Palace in November last year.

Why does Lady Victoria keep a low profile?

The report mentioned party insiders claiming that Victoria Starmer 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”.

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Sir Keir and Lady Starmer have two children – 15-year-old son and a daughter who is 13. 

Last month Keir even gave a big hint about why his wife stayed away, admitting that she had not wanted him to be a politician in the first place.

When Starmer was accused of being a “political robot,” he had 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."  

Lady Vic ‘has her own life’

Sir Starmer has earlier told the Sunday Mirror that his wife “has her own life and protects it vigorously”.

He has also said his wife won’t give up her work if he becomes Prime Minister.

“She’s absolutely going to carry on working, she wants to and she loves it,” he said last month.

Interviews with UK’s First Lady next to impossible

Lady Starmer has never done an interview and according to her husband and the new UK PM, that’s not about to change.

She has continued to keep a low profile during the polls and has turned down requests for interviews, comments and “off the record” briefings by friends.  

The Daily Telegraph quoted Keir Starmer’s office saying: “We aren’t encouraging pieces on her. Mrs Starmer will NOT be giving interviews.”

What work does Keir Starmer’s wife do?

Victoria Starmer, like her husband, is a trained solicitor. She met Keir while he was working as a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in early 2000s, before his appointment as director of public prosecutions.

She now works in occupational health for the NHS. “Her job gives an insight into the coal face of the health service,” Keir had earlier reported as saying by the Sunday Mirror.

 When Keir & Victoria met first?

In a 2020 Piers Morgan’s Life Stories interview, Keir revealed about his meeting with Victoria.  

They both met when they worked as lawyers but their first contact was an awkward phone call. Keir said he 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 said.

Keir went on to say that when he asked whether documents she had drawn up were accurate, Lady Vic muttered “Who the f*** does he think he is?” and “then put the phone down on me. And quite right too."  

Undeterred, he asked her on a date to a pub in Camden. The couple married in 2007.

Victoria is the daughter of a Polish-Jewish father and a mother who converted to the faith. She was born and raised Londoner and grew up in Gospel Oak in the north of the Capital.

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, Keir told in an interview to The Jewish Chronicle in March 2021.

Keir & Victoria’s children names

Keir & Victoria do not mention their children’s names in public. However, as per a report by Dailymail their son is named Toby, but the younger daughter’s name has not been made public.