Keir Starmer opens up about brother Nick Starmer’s death: ‘It hit me like a bus’
Sir Keir Starmer has revealed the deeply personal toll of his brother’s death, saying the loss “hit me like a bus”.
The Prime Minister shared his thoughts in his interview. One Way Essex Pete Wicks star Man Made podcast.
Recorded at 10 Downing Street to mark Men’s Mental Health Month, Sir Keir described the loss as “extremely difficult” to process.
His brother, Nick Starmer, had learning difficulties due to complications at birth.
He died on Boxing Day, 2024, at the age of 60, after being diagnosed with lung cancer nearly 18 months ago.
“I didn’t want him to find out the diagnosis on his own as he was so vulnerable, and because I didn’t know exactly whether he would understand or how he would react, I insisted on going to hospital with him and watched his face when he was told he had terminal cancer,” Sir Keir said.
He said he visited his brother while he was in intensive care without the public knowing, and hospital staff helped him get in and out without being seen.
“I was closing the world off to this,” he said.
“I definitely wouldn’t let anyone know this was happening.
“I knew he was going to die and when I saw him probably just before Christmas I knew in my heart of hearts that it might be the last time I saw him but I didn’t quite understand it.
“Then when he died on Boxing Day, even though I knew it was coming for 18 months, it hit me like a bus. It knocked me out.
“(It was) really hard because he’s my little brother.”
Sir Keir said the hardest part of being prime minister was “something deeply personal happening” and “there being no space” to process it.
He also discussed the challenges young men face, noting that the search for a role model is the most important of these.
“People like Andrew Tate and people like that are becoming very attractive to young men because they’re looking for a role that will, on some level, give them the feeling of being successful and rich and famous,” he said.
“On the other hand, it comes with a lot of misogyny and toxic division. It’s quite a challenge to get young men off that path and onto a different path.”
Discussing his relationship with manhood, the prime minister said fatherhood made him a better man.
Sir Keir, who has a son and daughter with his wife Lady Victoria, said he “thinks a lot” about parenting in a different way to his “distant” father.
He said: “(Fatherhood) created the space for me to be something different. (My children) changed my life profoundly, they changed me as a person, they changed me as a man, they changed my understanding of what it means to be a man.”
Asked what he hopes his children will say about him, Sir Keir said: “I’d like them to say I’m a loving father. That’s about it.”
The podcast episode, released on Friday, follows the release of the government’s men’s health strategy, which aims to tackle problems such as suicide, alcohol abuse and problem gambling.
