I didn’t actually know what Victoria Starmer—the wife of Britain’s new prime minister—looked like until polling day.
Which isn’t to say I knew nothing about her. I knew that she’d walked down the aisle to Beethoven thanks to Keir’s appearance on the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs; I knew that she worked in the National Health Service and was planning to continue her job in occupational health even if her husband got the top job; and I knew that she was Jewish. But somehow, I’d never actually seen a photo of her.
Before I am accused of being either apolitical, lazy, or unengaged—a statement that a whole drawer full of homemade campaign banners would disprove—I think it’s worth pointing out that this relative anonymity has been, I think, a tactical choice. Vic has not been used as a so-called “trophy” wife, trailing around the country in skirt suits and pearls, beaming adoringly from the side of the stage, and writing inoffensive blog posts about how much she likes to cook and grow her own herbs. Is this finally a sign of a shift in gender politics and representation, after two female prime ministers in less than a decade? Perhaps. Keir Starmer and his team have certainly eschewed the political tradition of putting his family photos in newspapers, in campaign literature, or even on social media. We do not know his children’s names, where they go to school, or what they look like. Whatever you think of Starmer as a politician, it is interesting—in fact, admirable��to me that he has gone to such lengths to protect the privacy of his closest relatives.
Compare this to, say, Sunak, who was memorably photographed on a California pier with his family last summer, just days after another interest rate rise, wearing what can only be described as “formal shorts” in front of a cotton candy stand. Or to former British Prime Kinister Boris Johnson’s flower crown wedding photos (after those awkward pub garden rumors), or David Cameron’s waving-and-smiling pose outside the door of No 10 (before that awkward leaving-his-child-in-a-car-seat-in-the-pub moment). For years, politicians’ wives, partners, and children have been wheeled out for photo opportunities in good times and bad, to such an extent that any other way seemed impossible.
The role of the political wife is, undeniably, a strange one. Cherie Blair—who was famously papped in her nightie opening the front door the morning after her husband Tony Blair’s 1997 victory—was fairly open in her dislike of press attention, telling the media as she left Downing Street in 2007, “Goodbye. I don’t think we’ll miss you.” Samantha Cameron, by contrast, leaned into the role of glamorous Tory wife, with her designer wardrobe and ease in front of the cameras. In both cases, the way these women looked and appeared in public was often raked over, by voters and journalists alike, for clues about their partners’ “real” lives. If we can get the measure of their relationship, we thought, then we can better judge their merits (or lack thereof). It doesn’t make sense, it isn’t feminist, and yet we all fall prey to this line of thinking.
Then there are the political wives with their own careers. I once had the honor of interviewing Glenys Kinnock about Eritrea and was struck that this was a woman who, patently, had all the eloquence, knowledge, and passion of a Prime Minister and yet never ran for the top job. Jennie Lee, the wife of post-war Minister for Health Nye Bevan, was a Labour MP from 1929 to 1931 and then again from 1945 to 1970, a political career that included a stint as minister for the arts under Harold Wilson. Across the pond, Hillary Clinton ran for office 16 years after her husband, Bill, left the White House, and was subject to a kind of scrutiny and criticism that has done nothing to improve public opinion of politics at large. And yet, in all cases, these women’s looks, wardrobe, hair, and loyalty were discussed as frequently as their policies.
I have now seen what Vic Starmer looks like and will, I’m sure, be seeing more of her in the years to come. No doubt she will continue to wear a lot of red dresses, her hair will be neat, and she will smile in photos. She is unlikely to amass a fortune of $833 million, à la the Sunaks. But to what extent she will play a role in Keir’s popularity or otherwise remains to be seen.