', "And that was tough. Georgia Gould, Labour leader of Camden council where Starmer is now the local MP, told BuzzFeed News: I say to him, It's alright. We didnt have an equivalent, he said. "I wouldn't say we were close. He never did. "I have to say at school, I was saying 'why on earth did you have to call me Keir? He won by chiming with what the membership wanted this contest will be won by Labour members thinking, Whos the best person to beat Johnson?. Football remains Starmers passion; hes an Arsenal season ticket holder and plays five-a-side in Kentish Town once a week alongside the son of singer Edwyn Collins, among others. He was so obsessed with his books, so buried in his texts, that he didnt notice two burglars walking round the house, helping themselves to our stuff.. 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WebIn March 2018, Starmer told the BBCs Nick Robinson that his father was a toolmaker working in a factory and working every hour, basically. Starmers long legal career and scrupulous attention to detail made him the right fit for the shadow Brexit role, for which he went line by line through complex draft legislation and used arcane parliamentary procedures to embarrass the government and force them to release key documents. Peter Tatchell, a human rights campaigner and longtime acquaintance of Starmer, remembered him as always being very open to representation from outside his own circle as DPP. Fresh out of studying law at Leeds University and postgraduate studies at Oxford, Starmer was a man filled with radical ideals. Those new to him as a subject, may take it as an inherited good (not so, it has been awarded in recognition for a thankless job full of pitfalls). The Rt Reverend Glyn Webster lights a candle in front of the newly restored Lady Chapel East Window at All Saints North Street in York, one of thirteen stained glass windows from the church undergoing conservation work at Barley Studio, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Pat Cullen on the picket line outside Great Ormond Street Hospital in London during a strike by nurses and ambulance staff, Britains former prime minister Liz Truss leaves her home on February 5, 2023 in London, England. Who was Keir Starmer's dad Rodney? Keir Starmer is the son of Rodney and Josephine Starmer and he was the second of four children. The family lived in Surrey and were strong supporters of the Labour Party. It makes you feel as though you dont fully belong, as though people might find it easier to find you out if you are conspicuous. His father, Rod, who was well known in the local community, worked in a factory every day from 8am to 5pm before coming home for his tea and going out to work again. The Mail on Sunday published a story lambasting Sir Keir Starmer over the weekend and ruffled a few feathers in the process. Rodneys wife Josephine, a nurse, was forced to give up work because she had Stills disease, a rare autoimmune disease which gradually robbed Sir Keirs mother of her speech and movement. The bundles of documents in front of me had to be 100% accurate, Starmer said at an event last year. Instead he steadily worked to persuade the leadership team without falling out with or complaining about them.. Sir Keir claimed that clashes between union members and the police led 'to the question of the role the police should play, if any, in civil society'. Keir Starmer recalls fathers life as factory worker in TUC speech. Starmer speaking to Labour members in Stratford. Read about our approach to external linking. The people who have a problem with our Brexit position want to distract from the fact that Jeremy Corbyn was a disastrous leader of the Labour party., Cooper said: The demographics of Brexit just are more difficult for the Labour party than they are for the Tory party, and there's no getting around it. She benefits from this confidence now, as it shows a certain happiness in her own skin, but it is as much a function of her accident of birth as anything else. Starmer paces in front of the audience, his voice raised: We can mope around for the next four years, taking lumps out of each other. 25 Feb/23. Harry Coles, a right-leaning journalist who wrote the story (and is also the ex boyfriend of First Fiance Carrie Symonds) also details how Sir Keir played down his wealth during the recent Labour leadership campaign. I want the Labour Party to be a broad church.". He told BuzzFeed News: I think hes been appalled by the awfulness of the current leadership not so much on policy but on the nastiness and the way they did things., Asked why Starmer hadnt spoken out while he was on the front bench, Falconer said: "He has on anti-Semitism. He was a difficult man, a complicated man. "Also, he had this utter commitment and devotion to my mum. Once, referring to himself in the third person, he told the BBC that 'Keir Starmer lives in North London, but Keir Starmer grew up in a town'. Hes much more interesting in real life, isnt he? one woman whispers. In December, when Starmer was dialling up his bid for Labour Leadership, he told the Today programme that my background isnt what they think it is. The Mail reported that the Labour leader acquired the property and land, on the green belt near the Surrey home where he grew up, in 1996, when he was still But he was incredibly hard-working.". This is a key challenge for Starmer: How does he convince Labour members at large and, ultimately, the country that he is more than the dull, meticulous man in a suit theyve seen at the despatch box? Jenny Chapman, a former MP who was vice-chair of Blairite pressure group Progress, is his campaign chair; Simon Fletcher, exchief of staff to Corbyn, is strategic campaign adviser; Kat Fletcher, who also worked on Corbyns 2015 leadership campaign, is director of field; and Morgan McSweeney, who ran Liz Kendalls doomed leadership bid, is campaign manager. Theres the knighthood (that he got by becoming the director of Public Prosecutions) which people are expected to call him by. Starmer was just out of university when Vickers asked him to move in. Our NHS is the best in the world. There is the most intense media pressure on all politicians, and its intense in particular on the leader of the Labour party, he said. The pressure is even stronger for women, who are already working against the perception that a Member of Parliament is a man. ', Another put: 'I was today years old when I found out that Keir Starmer was the influence for Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary. He feels conscious of being different, say being the first to enter higher education in his family, therefore cleverly adapts, evolves and learns to fit in? So its a kind of heightened imposter syndrome? BuzzFeed News contacted author Helen Fielding to establish the truth behind the claims, but she remained enigmatic on the subject. This is an issue close to his heart: His wife, who used to be a solicitor, now works in the local NHS hospital in occupational health and is overburdened in her team with too much to do. In recent weeks, Starmer has been trying to move the conversation on, saying that while Johnsons future trade deal with the EU should of course be scrutinised, the era of Remain versus Leave is over. Andrew Cooper, the Conservative peer and co-founder of polling firm Populus, caught the bus to school with him. His mother, Jo, died in 2015, just two weeks before Starmer was first elected as a Labour MP. Starmers appointment as head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2008 confounded many people: the human rights activist turned chief prosecutor for the state. Earlier on this year, when he was clearly preparing the ground for a leadership campaign, he told a fringe at the Labour Party conference that it wasnt even fair to say he was part of a London elite of politicians, pointing out that his family hadnt even lived in north London and had instead been based on the Surrey/Kent border. Nigel Greenhalgh of Surrey-based Village Developments told the Mail on Sunday that the plot was worth a lot of money, probably around 1.5 million per acre, so you are looking at 10 million in all. The family lived in Surrey and were strong supporters of the "His public persona, I think, comes across as quite sort of dour and a bit wooden and a bit self-important, and that is not him at all, he told BuzzFeed News. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex step out for Hollywood date night at exclusive private members club as Harry announces major live event, In Queen Margrethe II of Denmarks last interview before her extensive surgery, she spoke of the royal title drama and Crown Prince Frederiks future on the throne, The Princess of Wales wears delicate brooch with touching connection to the late Queen, All hail Labours new leader, Sir Keir Starmer, The Surrey town of Oxted where Keir Starmer is a notable resident. Tatchell said Starmer would make a fine Labour leader but said he hoped he would take on some of the very thoughtful, intelligent proposals made by Clive Lewis, the left-wing Labour MP who dropped out of the leadership contest in the early stages. Although further investigation has evidenced that the field was bought as a home for his late mothers rescue donkeys so not such a heinous crime after all? Regardless, of course, of whether the wider electorate really gives a damn about where you were born. His scale of ambition was clear, and the move did not go down well with Conservative commentators, who described him as a bleeding heart liberal. "I remember one occasion when I was about 13 or 14, my dad phoning me from the hospital and saying 'I don't think mum's going to make it, will you tell the others? My mum was very, very ill all of her life and my dad knew exactly the symptoms of everything that might possibly go wrong with my mum. or we can pick ourselves up, and we say, We can change this if we pull together.. Is it any good? He was the only one of the four Starmer children to pass the 11-plus exam, and he went to the all-boys Reigate Grammar School, which became a fee-paying school a few years after he joined. And while Sir Keir has made frequent reference to his tool maker father, dad Rodney once boasted that he ran his own factory. He points to his campaign team as proof he is serious about uniting the warring factions. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. This is how Starmer sums up his legal career in his leadership launch video: Standing up for the powerless and against the powerful. The four-minute film intersperses grainy footage of protests against Margaret Thatcher with moody shots of former mineworkers and images of MPs and media bosses outside court. He took long taxi rides in my name and tried to buy a house and a piece of art in my name, Starmer said. BuzzFeed News spoke to school friends, former colleagues, and fellow parliamentarians to try to unearth the real Keir Starmer: a man rooted in politics who is not a natural politician. This only bolsters the idea of him as a businesslike figure with little personality; Starmer is apparently well aware he needs to work on this side of himself. Starmer has said hes been heavily inspired by her courage and determination. Do not sell or share my personal information. Cooper lived in the four-bed flat before Starmer did. The local Surrey council is reportedly under pressure to provide thousands of new homes, and has accepted it must sacrifice areas of its green belt in order to meet targets. WebAnd while Sir Keir has made frequent reference to his tool maker father, dad Rodney once boasted that he ran his own factory. Labour was in an impossible position. ", "He was a difficult man, a complicated man, he kept himself to himself, he didn't particularly like to socialise, so wouldn't really go out very much. He is the real deal every time you would speak to Keir, he would be engaged in a particular cause. Is Andrew Bailey finally learning his lesson? It has also been reported that Firth styled his performance on the father of two, with neither the actor, Fielding or Sir Keir publicly denying the claim. Does he really have anything in common with them? Despite being beaten by an Old Etonian with de Pfeffel as his middle name, the Labour Party has descended into a rather predictable round of the Four Yorkshiremen, with competing factions arguing variously that voters in former red wall seats will only return to Labour if it is led by a northerner, a woman and preferably someone who grew up in a cardboard box. Now he wants to lead Labour when the party is at its lowest ebb, when it needs to gain 124 more seats to win a majority of just one at the next election (Weve got a mountain to climb, he often says, solemnly). One abiding memory is of his mum giving he and his siblings jam sandwiches when they came in from school. Allies of Sir Keir, who formally launched his campaign yesterday, denied any suggestion he was pretending to be something he was not. Sir Keir said his father worked as a toolmaker in a factory and would work 14-hour days, coming home for an hour at 17:00 "for his tea" before returning to work Sir Keir Starmer has opened up about his complicated relationship with his father during an interview on the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs. He hates being late he'll say to me, Georgia, we're gonna be late. She praised Starmer as being instrumental in getting justice for her teenage son Stephen, who was killed in 1993; two men were eventually convicted of his murder in 2012. She was in and out of hospital with a rare illness which eventually forced her to stop working. He was somebody who was well known and well loved, and I texted Keir to let him know, she said. By the time you get through the various social and professional networks which direct you into the House of Commons, you end up sounding just like everyone else. I understood who he was and what he was but we weren't close and I regret that. He is a Northerner only in London terms, and as former Director of Public Prosecutions, doesnt sound like hes come from a tough background. The Labour leader, who grew up in a left-wing working class family in Surrey, said he was not especially close to his father, Rodney, a toolmaker, who he described as a difficult man. Keir, himself, was named after the first Labour I dont think anyone really expected someone who dedicated his career to defending workers, trade unions, and activists to become director of public prosecutions, campaigner and peer Doreen Lawrence said in Starmers campaign video. Some MPs think Starmers dedication to his work will make him a dangerous opponent for laid-back Johnson, while others dismiss him as lacking in personality and charm. You might not, for instance, try to lose your strong regional accent when you come to London if your background means that you already feel you belong. For reasons best known to himself, Keir Starmer did not use any of these opportunities to explain that his father, in fact, ran his own business, the Oxted Tool Company. Ms Truss has written a 4,000-word essay in todays Sunday Telegraph in which she stood by her plans to boost economic growth during her short tenure in No 10, Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker fails to stop team-mate Joel Matip (not pictured) from scoring an own goal during the Premier League match at Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, A member of the public lines the road into St Michaels on Wyre, Lancashire, with missing posters of Nicola Bulley, 45, as police continue their search for the missing woman who was last seen on the morning of Friday January 27, when she was spotted walking her dog on a footpath by the nearby River Wyre, Not your usual prisoner! His mother was in and out of hospital with a rare illness which eventually forced her to stop working. Emily Ashton is a senior political correspondent for BuzzFeed News and is based in London. For a while now, Ive been buried deep in a vault in theDaily Telegraphgoing through the Matt Hancock files. The property also backed on to beautiful countryside. Keir Starmer is the son of Rodney and Josephine Starmer and he was the second of four children. The former human rights lawyer and Director of Public Prosecutions also spoke about his aim for a "united Labour Party" and also addressed the recent decision to suspend former leader Jeremy Corbyn from the party. His engineering skills allowed him to create a modified wheelchair for his wife later in life so they could still enjoy walks in the Lake District. Grey seal pups on the beach at Horsey in Norfolk, as the pupping season draws to a close at one the UK's most important sites for the mammals. Labour leader says his party will offer clear differences from Tories on workplace rights Starmer was the first in his family to go to university. Anyhow, a lawyer cant say 'fuck, my client the Labour leadership is awful,' but that is how its been for the last three years., Starmer lavished praise on Corbyn in his speech to members in Blackburn. Starmer, who became a member of Parliament in 2015 after a long and high-profile legal career, will not fit neatly into a political box. Starmer is, arguably, too bland for that, and not political enough. He denied being involved: A decision was taken not to prosecute in that case two years before I was appointed as director of public prosecutions, so theres a false story going round. Speaking to BuzzFeed News afterwards, the young woman said she still had doubts about Starmers ability to proactively combat institutional racism within the police and would probably vote for Long-Bailey. Starmer wrote several articles himself, including one about the dispute between Rupert Murdoch and print workers in Wapping and the policing methods at the picket line. Is it absolutely accurate? She quite indignantly, quite rightly, said: Absolutely. She says she then put the phone down and said: Who the fuck does he think he is? They married in 2007. The truth is not so, his rise has been meritocratic in absolute. His dedication to supporting people locally, to supporting the council and being there for us has just been amazing. He is not surrounded by a clique; he has friends in the Conservative party and is rarely seen in the Commons bars like most ambitious politicians. I don't know when he sleeps. He also picked a Northern Soul record - Dobie Gray's Out On The Floor - saying it reminded him of his "early days in London with a group of friends in a really grotty flat above a sauna and massage parlour that kept interesting hours". And while Sir Keir has made frequent reference to his tool maker father, dad Rodney once boasted that he ran his own factory. Behind the scenes, some Labour MPs bemoan Starmers safe campaign just as Johnson relied on a drama-free campaign during the election to get him over the line and hope he will show a firmer sense of his political vision, and more personality, if he becomes leader on April 4. Starmer said he, like many others, had been told by voters that they couldnt back Corbyn but he insisted their views had been tainted by inaccurate media portrayals. ", But Sir Keir adds: "I wouldn't say we were close. I will lead this great party into a new era, with confidence and hope, so that when the time comes, we can serve our country again in government.'. But Starmer also knows there are some things in life that are bigger than Brexit. I phoned up to check and said: This schedule? Youd never guess, for instance, that Claire Perry [the Tory MP for Devizes, elected in 2010 and sometimes described using the mockingly posh term jolly hockey sticks] was educated at a comprehensive.. He is also the only man in the contest, despite conceding that Labour is long overdue in electing a woman as leader (just not right now). At one of Starmers recent campaign events in Stratford, one Labour member raised concerns about his record in the CPS; she was concerned he had not prosecuted the police over the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes. King Charles III shakes hands with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky as he welcomes at Buckingham Palace, in London, ahead of an audience during his first visit to the UK since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We hold major institutions accountable and expose wrongdoing. Self care and ideas to help you live a healthier, happier life. Starmer meets nurses during a visit to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. The speech remains broadly the same though: the devastating general election result, the need to win back voters across the whole of the UK (not just those in northern heartlands), the pledge to unite the party and be an effective opposition against that liar Boris Johnson, all that Labour has achieved in government, and finally the need to stop wallowing in our loss. His father worked in a factory as a toolmaker and his mother was a nurse. His father worked in a factory as a toolmaker and his mother was a nurse. And, I regret that.". Sir Keir Starmer doesnt appear to be any of those things. She also presents Radio 4s Week in Westminster. Search, watch, and cook every single Tasty recipe and video ever - all in one place! Something for everyone interested in hair, makeup, style, and body positivity. We really rely on him, you know, when things get difficult now.. He backed Andy Burnham in that summers contest; when Corbyn won by a landslide, Starmer accepted a job as shadow home office minister. But the Shadow Brexit Secretary's town was Oxted, Surrey once named the 20th richest in Britain and his house had that middle-class staple an Aga. Starmers parents were animal lovers who rescued donkeys and Great Danes in their spare time (Whenever one of us left home, they were replaced with a donkey, Starmer has said). And he spoke about his love of football, saying he plays every week. Video, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, Listen: Keir Starmer on Desert Island Discs, recent decision to suspend former leader Jeremy Corbyn, Thrillingly tense, belly-laugh funny and mind-warpingly weird - we've got your lockdown weekend sorted, Colleagues, turned lovers, turned enemies. ', But one man wrote: 'I had a moment of utter despair yesterday when I heard the rumour thatMark Darcyin Bridget Jones's Diary is based onKeir Starmer. A live podcast recorded last year with comedian Matt Forde is a rare public example of Starmer in relaxed mode (If you want to get an idea of what Keirs really like behind the scenes, listen to that, a friend of Starmers told us.). Read about our approach to external linking. This is a glitzy Asian wedding venue; the night before, he was in an arts centre in Edinburgh the evening before that, West Ham Town Hall. Subscribe to leave a comment. WebPersonality at least with a big P remains a problem. Starmer was the first in his family to go to university. 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He wrote articles bitterly attacking the police for their conduct during the 1986 Wapping industrial dispute between disgruntled print workers and Rupert Murdoch's newspaper company. But Starmer is right to defend his background as it isnt what people say it is. He travelled to 44 constituencies during the five-week election campaign. The comments below have not been moderated. The latter case was made into a documentary film, McLibel, by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach, an old friend of Corbyns. At his funeral, Starmer reunited with Cooper and other old friends who reminisced about their time in a hovel of a flat in Archway, north London. For me, what Im driven by in this is the very deep inequalities that weve now got across the country of every sort: Income, wealth, health, influence, its deeply ingrained. He said that did not mean an endless debate about nationalising services, but a very forward-looking radicalism. But if thats all we do, were going to lose the next general election. His father worked in a factory as a toolmaker and his mother was a nurse. Keir Starmer is the son of Rodney and Josephine Starmer and he was the second of four children. "I didn't want that day to end in the way it did," he said, of the day the report into anti-Semitism in Labour was published. When Starmer was approached for comment his team responded saying that the land was bought for his late disabled mother to house donkeys who Keirs parents rescued and cared for. Medicaid to cut 14 MILLION Americans from health coverage as states crack down on eligibility for the first time in three years after numbers soared during COVID - so are you at risk? His team announced on Sunday that his mother-in-law died after a fall two weeks earlier. This leads to the question of the role the police should play, if any, in civil society, he wrote. Falconer, then a commercial barrister, said Starmer was a "very intense, committed, slightly isolated figure" when they first met. There are bigger challenges too: his knighthood and five-year stint as director of public prosecutions (DPP), not to mention his central London constituency, mean he struggles to escape the establishment tag. Cooper said: "We were, slightly weirdly, young socialists in a very, very safe Tory seat. Sir Keir Starmer spoke about his troubled relationship with his father, and his chronically ill mother, in a wide-ranging interview for BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs.. DONKEY BREED SOCIETY (01903405) Company status Active Correspondence address 23 Tanhouse Road, Oxted, Surrey, RH8 9PE. He is dismissed as a Blairite centrist by the left and a radical Marxist by the right. The sunrises through the sea mist over the sculpture The Couple by Sean Henry at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea on the Northumberland coast. I assume that left to his own devices, Keir would have had a more explicit second referendum position. And he was very popular. As a defence barrister, Starmer took on a raft of anti-establishment causes, including pro bono work trying to get rid of the death penalty in Caribbean countries, defending MI5 whistleblower David Shayler, and acting for two environmental activists who were sued by McDonalds. He has spent the past few days trying to overcome this great disadvantage as much as he has tried to articulate what he would actually stand for as Labour leader, telling the Today programme that my background isnt what they think it is. Starmer did struggle to shift copies of the magazine, though. Falconer said Starmer has always been utterly committed to the causes of the left: He could have made all the money he wanted. Last year, he told of his mothers pride in the NHS: In that high-dependency unit, near death, where they werent sure they had the facilities for her, she held my arm and said: You wont let your dad go private, will you?. You can have a day off. There he shared violin lessons with Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, and sought out friends who were also interested in politics.