Sir Keir Starmer opens up on 'distant' relationship with late father, saying he wishes they had been closer
The Labour leader says the "emotional space" with his father "was more squeezed" due to his mother's long-term illness.
Monday 11 March 2024 22:31, UK
Sir Keir Starmer has opened up on his "distant" relationship with his late father, saying he wishes they had been closer.
Speaking to Sky News' Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, the Labour leader said he regrets that they did not "address" the distance in their relationship before his father died.
Sir Keir's father - Rodney Starmer, known as Rod - was a toolmaker, who spent much of his time looking after the Labour leader's ill mother.
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Josephine died in 2015 - just before Sir Keir became an MP - and Rod died in 2018, two years before their son took over the reins of the official opposition.
Sir Keir told Ridge: "My mum was very, very ill, and she needed somebody in her life who was totally committed to her health and would put her above everything else.
"My dad did that."
Josephine had a rare condition known as Still's disease, a condition which leads to debilitating joint pain, week-long fevers and rashes.
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Tap here for moreSir Keir said Rod would make sure he understood every medicine his mother was prescribed and how they interacted "to make sure it could never possibly go wrong".
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Acts of devotion like this and sleeping in the hospital when his mother was there put pressure on Keir Starmer's relationship with his father.
"I suppose the emotional space was more squeezed than it might otherwise have been," he said.
"That's because he invested it all in my mum, and I probably should have addressed that before he passed.
"And I wish I had - but I didn't."
Starmer knocked off balance when talking about father
I've interviewed Keir Starmer a lot over the last few years, but if I'm honest, I've always found him slightly impenetrable as a politician.
What drives him? What's he passionate about? Why does he want to get into Number 10, and what will he do when he gets there?
But today, when I spent the day with him, I found a side that I hadn't experienced before, and I feel like I got to understand him a little better.
He usually comes across as someone who is quite controlled, rigorously sticking to the line, very focused.
But when I asked him about his relationship with his father 鈥� and whether he showed him love as a child 鈥� he was momentarily knocked off balance.
The Labour leader was asked how his father would feel if Sir Keir did make it to Downing Street.
He said: "He would be proud... He really had difficulty expressing pride, particularly to his children."
A visibly emotional Sir Keir told of a discovery he made after his father's death, saying: "I found this folder of cuttings that he had kept of all the things I've ever achieved.
"He had a book of cuttings which he had hidden in the back of a cupboard, but he had cut them out and kept them. I didn't know that.
"I wish I had known that so he would be proud in the way that I'm proud of my own children."
Sir Keir, who has two teenage children, aged 13 and 15, told Ridge he has taken the lessons he learned from his relationship with Rod into raising his own family.
He told Ridge: "I make it a really important part of my life that I'm with my children.
"I do not want to be that bloke - and it usually is a bloke - who in 10 years says I wish I'd spent more time with my children.
"If you want to spend more time with your children, spend more time with your children."
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This includes taking them to sports clubs and spending Friday nights together - a rule which the Starmer household is "very strict" about.
"Most importantly of all, when I walked through the front door, the baggage is left there, I'm dad, their dad, and most of the time that means that they can rip me about anything under the sun," he said.