Keir Starmer: My sister-in-law is lucky to be alive after firebomb

Times

a day ago

Sir Keir Starmer has revealed that his sister-in-law could have died in the fire-bombing of his old London home, describing how 'shaken up' the attack has left his family.
The prime minister told his biographer that his wife's sister and her partner had been in bed at his former home in Tufnell Park when it was attacked just after 1.30am.
He said had she not still been awake at the time the consequences could have been much worse, and the incident had had a deep impact on his family.
'She happened to still be awake,' Starmer said. 'So she heard the noise and got the fire brigade. But it could have been a different story.'
The attack last month took place the night before Starmer held a press conference on migration, in which he made his infamous remark that Britain had become an 'island of strangers'.
The prime minister told Tom Baldwin in a piece for The Observer that he now 'deeply regrets' the comment, saying he had 'no idea' that the phrase had an association with Enoch Powell. While he did not blame being preoccupied with the attack for making the comment, he said he should have chosen his words more carefully.
'I wouldn't have used those words if I had known they were — or even would be interpreted as — an echo of Powell,' he said. 'I had no idea — and my speechwriters didn't know, either. But that particular phrase — no, it wasn't right. I'll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it.'
He added that he had very nearly cancelled the press conference altogether. 'I was really, really worried. I almost said, 'I won't do the bloody press conference.' Vic [his wife, Victoria] was really shaken up; as, in truth, was I. It was just a case of reading the words out and getting through it somehow so I could get back to them.'
Elsewhere in the interview, Starmer described how he had personally gone to clear out the house belonging to his brother, Nick, who died at the end of last year. 'The previous day I had been taking calls on the future of European security and there I was, on my hands and knees with a brush, scrubbing out the back of the bog,' he said. 'That's quite a good leveller.'
Asked why he didn't get cleaners in he replied: 'I didn't want anyone else there. He was my brother — I didn't want to let him down.'
Beyond his 'island of strangers' speech, Starmer used the interview to admit to a series of missteps since taking power.
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He said his gloomy speech in the Downing Street garden last summer, where he warned 'things will get worse before they get better', was a mistake. It 'squeezed the hope out', he said. 'We were so determined to show how bad it was that we forgot people wanted something to look forward to as well.'
He also admitted that he should never have hired Baroness Gray of Tottenham as his chief of staff. 'Not everyone thought it was a good idea when I appointed her,' he said. 'It was my call, my judgment, my decision, and I got that wrong. Sue wasn't the right person for this job.'
He also acknowledged that accepting expensive clothes for the election campaign and tickets to watch Arsenal and a Taylor Swift concert with his family had been a mistake, even if no rules were broken.
Starmer said that what affected him was not that his own integrity had been questioned, but that sections of the media started calling his wife 'Lady Victoria Sponger' because she had received about £5,000 worth of clothes.
• Keir Starmer and his family 'met Taylor Swift at London concert'
'Part of the problem is that I got emotionally involved,' he said. 'One thing I'm reasonably good at usually is staying calm. But when they dragged Vic into it through no fault of her own, that made me angry.'
Starmer also spoke about his life in Downing Street, saying he tried to preserve 'normality' for his life and children. He added that they had been hesitant to have friends around initially. 'They were a bit reluctant to start with because it's sort of weird to say, 'Come over for a sleepover, but you'll need your passport; a man with a gun will check your bag and X-ray your teddy,' ' he said.
He also revealed that he had deliberately gone out of his way to embrace President Zelensky of Ukraine when he arrived in Downing Street after having been scolded at the White House by President Trump.
'Normally, I would wait on the step to greet him,' he said. 'But I was really conscious that he'd left the White House on his own. That's why I walked towards him and gave him a sort of hug.
'It's also why I walked him out to the car at the end; I wanted him to know that you don't leave my house on your own.'