Keir Starmer is right to keep his wife Victoria out of the spotlight

Politicians’ families ought to be off-limits. So when Nick Ferrari, the LBC presenter, asked Keir Starmer why we didn’t see more of Victoria, his wife, on the campaign trail, the Labour leader was entitled to tell him to mind his own business.

He did not, of course, preferring the bland response of saying that “Vic does quite a bit with me”, but that “she’s working at the NHS in a hospital” and “our boy’s been doing his GCSEs – we wanted to create the environment where he could study calmly”.

I rather admire the way Starmer has struck a deal with the devil of media intrusion on his own terms. He will use his wife’s work as an occupational therapist to buttress his pro-NHS credentials, and he will talk about his son and daughter enough to prove that he is a centrist dad; but he has not (yet) asked Victoria to introduce him at Labour Party conference, and he never uses his children’s names in public or allows photographs of them.

So that was all that Ferrari got out of him about his private life, apart from Victoria being supportive when he was “frustrated” by his performance in the TV debate. “I’m not good company when I’m in that place,” he said, but she “cheered me up on that one”. He said she was “very plain speaking and very down to earth … She’s the person that gives me the straight advice every time.”

So far, so vanilla, but I gather that the Starmers have given some thought to how their lives will work if they do move into Downing Street. Their intention is that they will be very much at the “no publicity” end of the spectrum of recent prime ministers.

Most prime ministers intend to try to maintain their privacy, at least at first, but find that the relationship with the media never works out quite as planned. Tony Blair, the first prime minister to have young children in Downing Street since the 19th century, was filmed at the door of No 10 with his children because, as Cherie Blair said, they “wanted to be part of” their father’s achievement.

Gordon Brown was towards the other end of the spectrum, surprising and delighting the nation when his two young sons appeared in public for the first time on the day he left office.

Since Blair, children in Downing Street have been the norm, with David Cameron and Boris Johnson both following his example (and that of Lord John Russell in 1849) by having children born while they were prime minister. They have all been protective of their children’s privacy, but if Starmer continues with his “no names, no photos” rule, he will be the most protective of all of them. Good for him.

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That still leaves, though, the question of what Victoria’s role will be. The prime minister’s spouse has no formal status, but especially since Cherie’s time there has been in No 10 a rudimentary office of the first lady or, in Theresa May and Liz Truss’s case, the first gentleman.

Cherie also led the way in using Downing Street for charitable work. That is something that Akshata Murty, Rishi Sunak’s wife, has taken up with enthusiasm, with a seemingly endless series of Instagram-friendly events with children, veterans and good causes. These include frequent classes for school pupils hosted by Akshata called “Lessons at 10” with the British Library and other institutions.

Presumably, Victoria will negotiate her own role, as Sarah Brown, Samantha Cameron, Philip May, Carrie Johnson, Hugh O’Leary and Murty did before her, balancing her job, her children and her public-facing role supportive of her husband in whatever compromise suits her best.

There does have to be a public-facing role, even if it is just holding Keir’s hand at big events – his appointment as prime minister, G7 summits, party conferences, that sort of thing. I am an absolutist about the right of politicians to privacy. The full force of the law should be used against protesters who demonstrate outside politicians’ homes, but it would not be realistic in today’s media environment for a prime ministerial spouse to be hidden away.

If Starmer refuses to say whether he would have served in Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet if Labour had won either of the last two elections, he cannot complain if some journalists seek other ways of trying to assess who he really is. The search for “authenticity” is bound to include one of the most important choices he made in life. So we can expect to see more of Victoria in the last two weeks of the election campaign.