Starmer says he has two sons in TV interview when he actually has a boy and a girl
Sir Keir Starmer slipped up in a television interview by accidentally saying he has two sons instead of a boy and a girl.
The Labour leader made the gaffe while paying tribute to his family, including his “fantastic” wife, Victoria, for their support.
Speaking to Sky News, he said he had two “relatively young” children, “a boy who’s 15” and “a boy who’s 13”, when he actually has a son and a daughter.
A senior Labour source put the mistake down to a slip of the tongue during questioning on a sensitive subject.
Sir Keir is fiercely protective of his children’s privacy, refusing to publicly name them, and has admitted he is worried for their welfare in the run-up to the election.
In the interview with Sir Trevor Phillips on Sunday, he voiced his fears about the potential impact of the forthcoming campaign on the teenagers.
“The only thing that keeps me up at night, the only thing that worries me, is our children because they’re 13 and 15 – that’s a difficult age,” he said.
“It will impact them. We don’t name them in public, we don’t do photographs with them. They go to the local school.
“I just desperately try to protect them in that way, but I know it’s going to be harder and I do worry about that.”
‘It impacts them every day’
He also praised his wife, a trained solicitor who now works in occupational health for the NHS, as his “complete support”.
“She doesn’t do anything publicly. She wants to get on with her job, she works for the NHS. We’ve got two relatively young children but it impacts them all of the time, every single day,” he said.
“And all that I do, I talk through with Vic. All the big decisions we sit and talk through at home and that is a good thing, except I’m not sure she signed up for this.”
In 2023 Sir Keir revealed he did not let his children eat meat until they were 10 and said his daughter has “never in her life” tasted it.
The Labour leader, a pescatarian, and his wife, a vegetarian, refrain from preparing meals with meat or fish at home.
Speaking on the Table Manners podcast hosted by pop singer Jessie Ware and her mother Lennie, he said: “What we said to the kids was, by the time they were about 10, ‘it’s up to you’.
“We don’t have meat or fish in the house, we don’t cook it, until they’re about 10 obviously they’re just eating with us.”
He added: “And then we said, ‘you can do what you like’ and our boy said ‘great’, so the moment we go out there’s a Deliveroo for Kentucky Fried Chicken or McDonald’s.
“So he’s taken full liberty with the licence to do what he likes.”
