Who is Victoria Starmer? The low-key former president of Cardiff University who now lives at No. 10

Following Sir Keir Starmer’s historic landslide victory in last week’s general election, his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer, now finds herself living a whole new life in Number 10. Although the 49-year-old kept a relatively low profile during the election campaign, she was involved in politics long before she met her husband as president of the student union at Cardiff University and through volunteering at Tony Blair’s campaign headquarters in 1997.

Lady Starmer, then known as Vicky Alexander, was born to Jewish parents in north London. She studied law and sociology at Cardiff University, where she was elected president of the student union in 1994.

As union president, she campaigned to repeal anti-union laws and took a strong stance against government cuts to student grants. It means Sir Keir is not the first in his family to campaign against the policies of a Conservative government.

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Victoria’s legal background was also how she met Sir Keir in the early 2000s when they worked together on a case. Their relationship didn’t get off to the best of starts, however, when the now Prime Minister, as the senior counsel on the case, called Victoria, who was working as a solicitor, to question her about the accuracy of the documents she had provided. As he hung up, he told ITV’s Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: “I overheard Vic saying to a colleague, ‘Who the hell does he think he is?'” They later married in 2007 at the Fennes estate in Essex.

Lady Starmer now works in an NHS hospital as an occupational therapist. Speaking about her work in the NHS, Sir Keir told the Sunday Mirror: “She loves working for the NHS. She loves the staff she’s working with… I have a direct line of sight on a daily basis into the challenges facing the NHS and the morale of the staff.”

In the run-up to the election, Lady Starmer has largely stayed out of the spotlight and has not joined her husband on the campaign trail. The couple were spotted on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in London, while Sir Keir shared a photograph of the couple on his Instagram. Join our WhatsApp news community here to get the latest breaking news.

Sir Keir spoke of his wife’s desire to remain private. He told The Times: “She wants to get on with her life. She doesn’t want to push herself into the spotlight. Vic has never given an interview, and we’re going to keep it that way because we want that boundary.”

Lady Starmer has two children with Sir Keir, a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, but they have chosen to keep their names and faces out of the media. He told ITV’s This Morning about the concerns he had for his children if he won the election, saying: “I can see deep down that they are worried that this (their lives) could change, which is why we will fiercely protect their privacy.”