Keir Starmer "not naming my children"

[Misthios]

Respect his stance not to allow pictures of his kids, fair enough, that is the decision he and his wife have made.

But the whole "i'm not publicly naming them" - you'd think as a former lawyer he'd know birth records are public record and anyone can find out in 30 seconds? So not the big secret he thinks it is?

This.

So weird to care.

I can't see how not knowing his children's names or what they do in life affects me in any way.

Also people who complain about this non-issue would also say he uses his children for political purposes if he did happen to mention them.

I also remember all the stick the Blair children got. Awful.

Iirc the only time that names have been made public is when babies are born while their dad is PM or once they are adults (I saw something about a start up and Euan Blair)

I bet that it would be easy to find their names online.

At least we know how many kids he has…

The Sunaks' children were pictured at Downing Street.

Just because it’s easy to do doesn’t mean everyone will go and search for his kids birth certificates. Yours is a bizarre position to take on it. The general consensus is that attempting some privacy for his children is good.

And yes, people are free to research this stuff. But printing their names in the press is very different.

Having some semblance of privacy is the best we can get in the current internet world.

Of course they do. I think you're missing the point.

He's making it very clear that if they are named publicly it's not with permission. Which seems to me a very sensible and lawyerish thing to do.

I can understand why he has done this it’s trying to protect them he knows he can’t not fully prevent their names being found out

His children are being raised Jewish so to some shall be a target, as were Sunaks children targets for disgusting racists

And naming his children would squash these rumours?

Rumours

Did Boris even know?

🤣🤣🤣

Why does anybody care about his children? There are many threads on this website berating parents who exploit their kids on social media etc for publicity. One of the most public people in the country is drawing a clear boundary that his children are not for public consumption. Is that not a good thing?

I heard on a politics podcast that if he doesn't name them / speak about them it's harder for "friends" / school staff to sell stories to the press about them as there is no appetite for it.

I agree. KS is well aware that it won't make them invisible, and people like the OP will probably do some digging, but mostly they won't be on people's radar.

Stop it. Just stop it. Speculating about his kids like this is ghoulish.

Yes and it would be a GDPR breach, so the UK press won’t do it. Sensible of him.

I'm glad he's setting a precedent by not using their names when speaking to journalists/the public and asking the press to do the same. Of course he knows that it'd be easy enough to find out if someone really wanted to. But I respect people who choose to keep their children out of the public eye. I wish more people followed suit.

Yes you can look the names up but most people won't be bothered so most don't know. As soon as he discloses names he's effectively giving permission for the media to name them (however trivially or inconsequentially) and everyone will know them whether interested or not.

It's another layer of privacy. I think it's very sensible.

Agree, but also a senior lawyer he should be aware that "we keep that private" isn't really accurate.

And the statement was of interest to me as I spend a good part of my working life looking up these sorts of records and ordering copies, and regualrly come across people who are surprised that it is so easy to do that. Also why using your mother's maiden surname as a password or identity key is so stupid.

Am I the only one who is more interested in names and pictures of his pets?

• We never did for Boris either.

Slightly different circumstances, grant you...*

Nor did he.

@PandoraSox - I agree. It's horrible posting salacious gossip about children.

There’s a difference between private and secret. He’s keeping it private, he knows it’s not secret.

All politicians have human dimensions. Complaining that if his kid is trans he will be influenced by that is like complaining that he’ll be influenced by his wife being Jewish, or complaining that he’ll be influenced by having children at all. Maybe one of his kids is trans, all I know about that is that it is none of our business.