Keir Starmer Biography: Net Worth, Children, Wife, Siblings
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer, born 2 September 1962 is a British politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since July 2024 and as Leader of the Labour Party since 2020.
Keir Starmer has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015, and was previously Leader of the Opposition from 2020 to 2024 and Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013.
Born in London and raised in Surrey, Starmer attended the selective state Reigate Gramma School which became a private school while he was a student. He was politically active from an early age and joined the Labour Party Young Socialists at the age of 16.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Leeds in 1985 and gained a postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law degree at St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford in 1986. After being called to the bar, Starmer practised predominantly in criminal defence work, specialising in human rights.
He served as a human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board and was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2002, later citing his work on policing in Northern Ireland as being a key influence on his decision to pursue a political career.
Early life and education
Starmer was born on 2 September 1962 in Southwark, London. He grew up in the town of Oxted in Surrey. He was the second of the four children of Josephine (née Baker), a nurse, and Rodney Starmer, a toolmaker. His mother had Still’s disease. His parents were Labour Party supporters, and reportedly named him after the party’s first parliamentary leader, Keir Hardie, though Starmer said in 2015 that he did not know whether this is true.
In his teenage years, Starmer was active in Labour politics; he was a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists at the age of 16. He was a junior exhibitioner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama until the age of 18, and played the flute, piano, recorder, and violin. In the early 1980s, Starmer was caught by police illegally selling ice creams while trying to raise money during a holiday to the French Riviera. He escaped the incident without punishment, beyond the ice creams being confiscated.
Starmer studied law at the University of Leeds, becoming a member of the university’s Labour Club and graduating with first class honours and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree in 1985, becoming the first member of his family to graduate. He undertook postgraduate studies at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating from the University of Oxford as a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) in 1986.
From 1986 to 1987, Starmer served as the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine. The magazine was produced by an organisation under the same name, which represented the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT).
Political positions
Starmer’s politics have been described as unclear and “hard to define”. When elected as Labour leader, he was widely believed to belong to the soft left of the Labour Party. However, he has since moved to the political centre-ground. The term Starmerism has been coined to refer to Starmer’s political ideology, and his supporters have been called Starmerites.
Personal life
Starmer met former solicitor and occupational health worker Victoria Alexander in the early 2000s while he was a senior barrister with Doughty Street Chambers. The two eventually became close, becoming engaged in 2004 and married on 6 May 2007 on the Fennes Estate in Essesx. The couple have two children, a son, who was born a year after their wedding, and a daughter, born two years after that. Both are being brought up in the Jewish faith of their mother. As of June 2024, the couple reside in Kentish Town, north London.
Starmer is a pescatarian, and his wife is a vegetarian. They raised their children as vegetarians until they were 10 years old, at which point they were given the option of eating meat.
In an interview during the 2024 general election, Starmer revealed that the thing he feared most about becoming prime minister is the impact it may have on his children, due to their “difficult ages” and how it would be easier if they were younger or older. Starmer said in a radio interview that, if elected prime minister, he would avoid working after 6 pm on Fridays in order to observe Shabbat dinners and spend time with his family.
Starmer is an atheist; he chose to take a “solemn affirmation” (rather than an oath) of allegiance to the monarch. Starmer has said that he does not believe in God but believes in the power of faith to bring people together. He and his family occasionally attend a liberal synagogue, and he stated in a 2022 interview that his children are being brought up to know the Jewish faith and background of their maternal grandparents.
Starmer is a keen footballer, having played for Homerton Academicals, a north London amateur team, and he supports Premier League side Arsenal.
Sir Keir Starmer’s net worth
In 2021/2022, Sir Keir Starmer’s salary for being a Labour MP was £76,961 and he received as extra £49,193 for being leader of the opposition. He was previously Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2013, a role which is known to command a hefty salary.
In 2020/21, the Labour leader, who is a barrister, received more than £21,000 for legal services. He stopped taking on legal work when he moved on from being a shadow minister to becoming Labour leader in April 2020.
The Mail on Sunday reported in May 2020, upon Sir Keir’s election as Labour leader, that he owns seven acres of land in Surrey worth up to £10m. The newspaper said that Sir Keir acquired the property, on green belt next to the.
Surrey home where he grew up, in 1996, while he was working as a human rights lawyer.
During the 2020 Labour leadership campaign, Starmer the politician, played down his wealth. “I’m not a millionaire”, he said, albeit he later conceded the north London house that he shares with his wife Victoria Starmer, might be worth £1 million.
Sir Keir Starmer’s tax returns
In March 2023, it was revealed that Sir Keir Starmer had recently paid £118,580 in UK tax. The revelation came after Sir Keir released his own tax returns, responding a day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak published details of his finances.
On top of his salaries as an MP and the leader of the Opposition, Starmer’s earnings in 2021/2022 included more than £85,000 in capital gains from the sale of a home he had bought with his sister.
The Labour leader’s records show the total UK tax he paid was £51,547 on total earnings of £147,633 in 2020/21, and £67,033 on total earnings of £212,087 in 2021/22.
Sir Keir Starmer’s net worth, reflected partly in his income and capital gains in 2021/22 was though dwarfed by that of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who earned more than £1.9m — nine times more than the Labour leader.
Was Sir Keir Starmer born into money?
Unlike many politicians,Sir Keir Starmer was not born into a life of privilege. Starmer was born in Southwark. His father, Rodney Starmer, was a toolmaker and his mother was a nurse. He was later educated at Reigate Grammar School in Surrey.
In light of the recent cost of living crisis, the Labour leader spoke to BBC explaining that he understood the financial plight facing families despite his multi million pound net worth. He shared: “I actually do know what it is like to sit around the kitchen table not being able to pay your bills.”
The former lawyer noted the family’s phone lines were cut off for “months at a time” as they “got to a point where we couldn’t pay for the utilities”.
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