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Sir Keir Starmer appeared tearful while discussing his mother’s battle with a debilitating illness and other family tragedies with Piers Morgan during a three-hour interview recorded this week.
The Labour leader’s appearance on ITV’s Life Stories with Piers Morgan is due to be broadcast on 1 June. ITV say that Sir Keir will “reflect on his childhood in Surrey and his mother’s battle with a debilitating illness” along with other elements of his “family life and move into politics”.
Mr Morgan shared a glimpse of the programme’s taping on Friday, commenting that Sir Keir had entered the “lion’s den”.
Additional photographs from the taping, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, show Sir Keir with tears in his eyes, as his wife Victoria wiped away tears from the audience.
According to The Mail, Sir Keir became emotional as he explained that his mother Josephine never got to see him become an MP as she died just weeks before his election in 2015.
Sir Keir said his mother, who suffered from Still’s disease, a rare type of inflammatory arthritis, also never got to know his children as she became completely debilitated by her illness.
The Labour leader also said during the interview that his father, Rodney, became reclusive after the death of his wife in the years before his own death in 2018, and that the couples’ wedding photographs and other possessions were lost in a fire that also claimed the life of the family’s dog.
He also discussed halting his leadership campaign in 2020 after his mother-in-law was involved in a sudden accident that ultimately resulted in her death.
The interview, which is set to offer a rare glimpse into Sir Keir’s personal life, comes after Labour suffered the loss of Hartlepool for the first time since 1959 in a recent by-election.
The Labour leader was publicly accused of being “invisible” by one of his own MPs, Ian Lavery, and has been dogged by accusations of having no clearly defined direction or policy. Sir Keir’s personal ratings have also slid in the polls across the last year.
The ITV interview also has regenerative potential for Mr Morgan, who resigned from Good Morning Britain after comments he made about the Duchess of Sussex in March.
Mr Morgan admitted that it was “not for me to question if she felt suicidal” after he questioned the veracity of Meghan Markle’s statements during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
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