To wish Sir Keir and his wife would not hold hands when working

My guess here is they really can’t win! If she had stayed at home I bet the OP would have started a thread about that and insinuated something was a miss!

still it shows how desperate people are that the only stick they currently have to beat the new government with is a bit of hand holding - so that’s good

My mum used to say, couples who act overly affectionate in public constantly are usually trying to hide the fact that there are problems in the marital home.

Is holding hands 'overly affectionate' though. I doubt anyone would find a couple holding hands as being OTT affection!

I've seen couples in their 90s, married for 60+ years, holding hands.

Do you really think that all the thousands of couples around the world who hold hands all have lots of marital problems? More so than those who walk further apart, not holding hands? It would be ridiculous to think that, surely?

She’s not going to be able to see anything if Washington though, is she? And why assume we are paying for the child care? They’d need security whether she was in London or not.
It’s the sudden flurry of concern about it now it’s a Labour PM that is jarring. It’s always the case for these sort of events.

They're not holding hands while working though are they, or at least she's not. She's not the "first lady", she's not got a job in the government. She's got her own job in the NHS. She's just a woman who's tagged along on a business trip with her husband.

She couldn’t. Imagine they heyday the world’s press would have if every other leaders’ spouse was there apart from our newly elected PM. I can’t see how sitting on a plane in order to be forced into close proximity with a lot of strangers for a highly regimented hospitality itinerary could possibly be construed as a jolly. It would be most people’s definition of hell.

If Victoria Starmer is still employed by the NHS I hope she's not getting extra paid leave because of being PM's wife.

I assume, like other employees, she'd be entitled to unpaid exceptional leave - which this would come under, quite easily.

I'd prefer them not to, I must agree OP.

Did you post about Johnson and his 10 kids to several different women?

That's slightly more "cringey" than Starmer holding hands with his wife, surely?

I assume they're not holding hands during meetings/dinners? It's just optics.

I don't even hold hands with my husband when out walking. Always think it looks like someone being taken out for a walk.

Right on @DramaLlamaBangBang !

This post is the kind of tone policing that happens all the time when someone new comes into politics: women, POC, Labour. They are treated as “doing it wrong” for some subtle, minor, reason that is at once nothing and also blown up to enormous symbolic value.

In the US Mrs Obama was pilloried for being photographed in a sleeveless dress—popularized by Jackie Kennedy but a sign of a kind of unseriousness and unfitness when worn by the first African American first lady. Obama was attacked for wearing a tan suit. Or putting his feet up in the Oval office.

The accusation that Labour or women or POC don’t know how to comport themselves as representatives of the country is a kind of delegitimizing of democratic leaders who don’t come from traditional bastions of power—or who do (like keir starmer) but who represent constituents who may come from diverse backgrounds. This method of holding women, POC, new leaders to invisible standards of perfection is really dsmaging.

As Dramalama observed above the capers of Boris Johnson were not as despised as the mere handholding incident.
As for the sudden cost consciousness (I object to my tax money paying for her!) why don’t you investigate? In the US there are quite strict rules about who pays for what when the families of politicians are involved. Usually these expenses must be paid for by the politician. But if you look closely at press coverage you will see that its only an issue when outsider/democratic politicians take office. Both the Clintons snd the Obamas were badgered snd put under a microscope for things like a playset for their children (they paid) when no stories were written about household costs at sll for the republican presidents.

She was never a nurse. She was a lawyer then retrained as an OT. She’s part time. I imagine she’s taken unpaid leave.

There is no 'first lady' in Britain. There never has been.

It's a sexist, archaic American term that we really don't need to import.

I don’t care that the Macrons, Sussexes or Obamas do it.

The PM is not there as part of a pair. Mrs PM is not the First Lady.

I'm sure she could be. She's got a free trip to the US; I'd call that a jolly.

I think the hand holding is a bit adolescent and unprofessional, but I agree with others that the bigger issue is what she's doing there at all. She holds no public office and nobody voted for her. If the genders were reversed, this would not happen.

I doubt it’s much of a jolly. I imagine she’d much rather be at home.

Agree. Cringe.

I don't think it's cringey. When Trump walked in front of Queen Elizabeth now that was cringey.

As for those saying why does she have to go to the US. She's the first lady. She might not be PM but she is supporting her husband in his new role.

I agree, and also resent that we've probably paid not only for her jolly, but also for someone to look after the kids and provide security in their parents' absence.

It's interesting how quickly some people's response turned to crude images reflecting their view of a woman's role, even though we're discussing two people.

It's a convention but a strange one when you think about it and there is a sense of spouse as accessory. When he went to visit other parts of the UK the other day, did he take his wife and did we see photos of the two of them? This photo from Washington signifies something different, creating an image for media and public consumption of playing on big world stage at important event. The PM is not alone. He has an entourage of bag carriers, advisers, security etc and when he gets to Washington he has an ambassador and staff there. So he's not short of support and it's not necessary for the business of the visit. There may be some more social side to it with a dinner or similar but he'd have people with him there too, so he'd not be alone.

It’s SM. When I was growing up there was no SM so your thoughts and opinions either stayed in your head, expressed to friend or written in a letter ‘Angry from Tunbridge Wells’ style. It’s not healthy and I know I can also be a part of it (I’ve just been scornful of teeny bikini bottoms in another thread, a thought that would normally go no further than my own mind). 😁

Seriously, the faux naivety on this thread and so many others is amazing. Have all the 'why has he taken his wife?' posters only just started following the news? Have they never opened a newspaper in real life or on line? This is not Starmer's socialist idea. Every PM takes their partners to these events and so do all the other world leaders.

The convention may be odd but it hasn't originated today.

And as for the handholding, maybe it is performative, but it's widely practised, by politicians of all political stripes. All the main party leaders in this country were filmed holding hands with their wives on the way to cast their ballots.

I wonder how many threads there were when Boris Johnson paraded his latest 20 years' younger girlfriend around world leaders? At least Lady Starmer has a chance of being able to hold an intelligent conversation with the spouses of world leaders.

My mum used to say, couples who act overly affectionate in public constantly are usually trying to hide the fact that there are problems in the marital home.

OMG! Married for almost 34 years and DH and I still hold hands. I shall divorce him forthwith.

My parents hold hands at 92, and have their whole lives since they met at 8. My dh and I hold hands too—just this morning on the way out for coffee for example.

There is a lot of faux class policing here with the fuss over the Starmer’s holding hands. There is such a romance of british stiff upper lip/duty/unsentimental performance. Some if you say you want Starmer to be more authentically labour—like Labour must always be a coal miner with no education. If he showed up in braces and helped his missus down the stairs because she’d never been oot o the village would that be ok?

Anyway all this performative public stoicism is just the product of the upper class adoption of fake Roman cultural tropes to legitimize naked power and foster imperial goals.

Holding hands in public? Shock, horror, how non U.