Sir Keir Starmer has opened up about his brother’s death, which he says hit him ‘like a bus’ in an emotional interview with reality TV star Pete Wicks.
The Prime Minister revealed that for 18 months, he was smuggled in and out of the hospital for secret visits to see his brother Nick, who was battling lung cancer.
Nick, who suffered from learning difficulties, died on Boxing Day in 2024, aged 60. Sir Keir, who despite being one of the most powerful men in Britain, is deeply private about his family life and has rarely spoken of his sibling’s death.
However, on the podcast, which focuses on modern masculinity and men’s mental health, Sir Keir discussed his ongoing grief.
The PM revealed how he had to explain to Nick that his illness was terminal because of his brother’s learning difficulties, a result of complications during birth.
Nick fought off pancreatic cancer in 2022 but the disease later returned, spreading to his lungs.
Sir Keir said: ‘Because he’s very vulnerable I didn’t want him to learn about the diagnosis on his own, because I didn’t know that he would properly understand.
‘I didn’t know how he would react.’
The Prime Minister revealed that for 18 months, he was smuggled in and out of the hospital for secret visits to see his brother Nick, who was battling lung cancer
Nick Starmer, the brother of Sir Keir Starmer, died on Boxing Day aged 60 after suffering from cancer
Recorded at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister opens up about his brother’s death and his ongoing. Pictured: Sir Keir Starmer with Pete Wicks on a special episode of Man Made
The PM added that he had to ‘talk through’ the diagnosis with his brother ‘to make sure he properly understood and what the implications of that were going to be in terms of how it would impact on his life’.
‘This was after being in intensive care in hospital for weeks and weeks, and I’d been privately visiting him,’ Sir Keir said.
‘So unbeknownst to the outside world, I’d gone in, the hospital had really kindly got me up through back chutes and lifts and staircases into intensive care, where I sort of popped out of an odd door, spent time with my brother, went back out of the hospital.
‘Nobody knew I’d been there.’
He admitted that to ‘protect [Nick] above all else’, he would not talk about it publicly and did not let the media know of his secret hospital visits.
An emotional Sir Keir revealed that he had seen him a week before his death and that he knew that it ‘might be the last time that [he] saw him’.
He said: ‘I could see he was in a very bad state and I knew what the diagnosis was, but I was shutting hold out to this.
‘I fiercely wouldn’t let anybody know that this was happening.
‘So I knew he was going to die and I probably in my heart of heart knew when I saw him just before Christmas that that might be the last time that I saw him, but I hadn’t quite processed that.’
‘And then when he did die on Boxing Day, even though for 18 months this was coming, it hit me like a bus – just knocked me out, really hard to take, because he’s my little brother, and I’d seen all he’d been through and how he’d struggled through life.
‘He’d done so much not withstanding the struggle.’
Describing his brother Nick (pictured), Sir Keir said he had ‘an incredible kindness and a willingness to do anything for other people’, despite not having much money.
The Labour leader admitted that following his brother’s death, he has found it hard to find the ‘space’ to mourn.
Describing his brother, Sir Keir said he had ‘an incredible kindness and a willingness to do anything for other people’, despite not having much money.
Speaking to former Strictly star Pete Wicks on The Man Made podcast, Sir Keir spoke about the difficulties of dealing with his brother’s death while serving as the Prime Minister.
He said: ‘I’m in the public domain. I’m not trying to be self-regarding, but you have to be out there.
‘People are reading into everything you say or do all sorts of things.
‘This is the hardest thing of my job, when something intensely personal happens and you just need a space.
‘Particularly with grief, in my view. And yet there isn’t really the space. And it’s quite difficult.
‘Very difficult, intensely difficult.’
The Prime Minister admitted that he has ‘never done therapy’, before praising his wife, Vic, describing her as a ‘fantastic absolute rock and brick’.
He added that he was ‘very lucky to have two teenage children who will not let me be Prime Minister’ and ‘will only let me be dad, and who rib me mercilessly and laugh at me constantly’.
‘They’re the first to embarrass me or laugh at me or play me back video clips of what I’ve said or done,’ Sir Keir said.
‘Anything they can do to laugh at or with me, they will do. And it is fantastic. It is exactly how it should be.’
During the last two years of Nick’s life, Sir Keir would make regular trips to Leeds to see his sibling in the hospital.
Sir Keir was best man for Nick when he got engaged to his girlfriend. The PM is pictured on the day of his wedding to Victoria with his parents Jo and Rod Starmer
But he refused to speak publicly about his brother’s illness and never tried to exploit it for political gain.
The PM did discuss his brother’s illness in private with his biographer – although the details were left out of Mr Baldwin’s book ‘Keir Starmer: The Biography’, when it was published in February.
Describing Nick’s health, the PM said his brother had begun suffering from breathing problems and claimed his poor hearing had led to his sibling being unable to work.
In his biography, the Prime Minister describes how he was the best man for Nick, and stood up for him after enduring bullying throughout his life.
Nick suffered complications at birth and was subsequently told he would never be able to read – though he later learned, thanks to help from his mother, Jo.
While young Keir was considered something of a star pupil, Nick was granted only ‘remedial’ education with lessons in a village hall and took no exams.
But he later achieved a technical qualification and was able to get a job as a labourer working on scrap cars and at a scaffolding firm.
Sir Keir said in the biography: ‘Nick was dealt a very different set of cards to me and he’s had problems all his life — problems I’ve never had to face.
‘I admire him, not in spite of the way his life has taken another course to mine, but because of it.
‘I remember Dad saying to me many, many times: “Nick has achieved as much as you, Keir”.’
