Sofia Benavides

(CNN) — The British people have elected a new government and with it a new family will be moving into 10 Downing Street.

Unlike other countries, such as the United States, when a new British prime minister comes to power, the transition to a new role and a new home occurs immediately.

It means that not only will Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, move into the house near Parliament, but so will his wife, Victoria, and their two teenage children.

Who is Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister of the UK?

So who is Victoria Starmer and what do we know about the new occupant of 10 Downing Street?

Starmer’s wife, who goes by “Vic”, has kept a low profile during the election campaign.

The couple were pictured at the Labour Party conference in September 2022. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

Both with legal backgrounds, the couple married in 2007, a year before Starmer became Director of Public Prosecutions.

Their relationship arose from an unexpected first meeting at work, the Labour leader told Piers Morgan in 2021. At the time, a lawyer, Starmer was preparing for court proceedings and asked to speak to the lawyer who had drawn up the documents related to the case. That lawyer was actually a barrister, Victoria.

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He asked her if the documents were accurate, and after the conversation was over, he heard her say, “Who does she think she is?” He told Morgan that he had been chasing her for months and once she answered him, they had been together ever since.

“Vic is lovely, she’s down to earth, we share values ​​and we laugh together,” Starmer said.

Victoria, whose parents are Jewish, now works in occupational health in the NHS.

“Half of the family is Jewish, they are either here or in Israel,” he told The Guardian last month, adding that they were both “very keen” for their children to understand their heritage.

The couple spoke at the State Banquet of Emperor Naruhito and his wife Empress Masako of Japan at Buckingham Palace, London, in June. (Aaron Chown/PA)

The prime minister has responded to his children’s concerns about the move: “Deep down they are worried that this (their lives) could change, which is why we will be very protective of their privacy.”

Starmer is so determined to achieve that goal that he refers to them in interviews as “my men” and “my women”.

“We made a decision early on to keep them protected, so we won’t be doing any photo shoots with the kids and we won’t be naming them publicly,” he told British television station ITV.

Pro-Palestinian protesters left a display of children’s shoes outside the Starmers’ north London home earlier this year. (Youth Demand/PA)

Starmer told The Guardian he was “very aware” of how his work affected his family and, of his children, said that “these are formative years. We keep life very normal and unchanged.”

Earlier this year, pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the family’s home in Kentish Town, north London, where they unfurled a banner reading “Starmer, stop the killing” and left rows of children’s shoes.

The Starmers’ main hope, he told “This Morning”, was that their children would be “happy and confident”.

This could be helped by the new addition, he admits, as moving into Downing Street would likely see his children “step up… their campaign for a dog”.

CNN Wire
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