Sir Keir Starmer‘s wife Victoria was seen for the first time in public since her husband became Prime Minister on Saturday afternoon.
She was spotted at Sandown Park Racecourse in Esher today dressed in a colourful green dress and dark emerald earrings on a gold chain, which matched her necklace.
Lady Victoria was there to watch the Coral-Eclipse, one of British horseracing’s most prestigious races, on day two of the Coral Summer Festival.
Sir Keir’s wife – who has vowed to ‘lead her own life’ in No10 – was seen standing with a friend while holding a raceday programme.
Today, Keir Starmer warned of ‘tough decisions’ looming and tried to stop people calling him ‘PM’ today as he kicked off his Red revolution.
At his first press conference in Downing Street, the Labour leader said journalists could call him ‘Keir’ as he acknowledged that his government will be ‘judged on actions not on words’.
He said the government will need to make ‘tough decisions and take them early’ – saying that there would be ‘raw honesty’ about what needs to be done, although he denied that meant tax hikes.
Instead he stressed that crime could be an area, after it emerged his new prisons minister has suggested two-thirds of people in jail should not be there. Sir Keir said there were ‘too many prisoners, not enough prisons’.
Click here to resize this module
Sir Keir also confirmed that the Rwanda policy pursued by Rishi Sunak was ‘dead and buried’.
Asked if he was getting used to being referred to as ‘Prime Minister‘, Sir Keir chuckled and said: ‘I’m very happy to be called Keir or Prime Minister.’
His wife ‘Lady Vic’, as she is known fondly in party circles, was missing from the election campaign completely.
Party insiders have claimed that her absence was to protect the couple’s children because they are ‘completely freaked out by the idea of being in Downing Street and the public eye’.
Mr and Mrs Starmer married 17 years ago – but their relationship had a rocky start, and falling in love, let alone a marriage and children, couldn’t have been more far off when a young Sir Keir questioned the quality of her work.
Mrs Starmer, then a lawyer and now an occupational therapist who plans to continue to work in the NHS, went berserk at the arrogant young barrister because her drafting was perfect.
Click here to resize this module
Unlike the outgoing prime minister Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty – a multi-millionaire heiress to IT firm Infosys’s $70billion (£54.9bn) fortune – not a great deal is known of Lady Victoria Starmer.
Sir Keir himself has said that she ‘has her own life and protects it vigorously’.
Lady Vic’s father was an economics lecturer who moved to the UK from Poland before the Second World War. Her father is Jewish and her mother, who died in 2020, was a community doctor who converted to the faith.
Far from the working class background her husband likes to talk about, she went to the exclusive private Channing School in Highgate – one of London’s most exclusive areas.
She secured degrees in law and sociology from Cardiff University, where she was president of the student union from 1995 to 1996.
Around four years later, Britain’s First Couple met – but had an almighty row when they met that ended with a shower of expletives from Mrs Starmer who then told him to get lost.
She slammed down the phone after yelling: ‘Who the f*** does he think he is?’ Keir heard it all but by 2007 they were married.
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.
Outside of her NHS work, she has also served as also a governor at her children’s school in Camden borough.
They now share a £1.75million Kentish Town home with their two children – a teenager named Toby, 16, and a younger daughter, 13, 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.