Keir Starmer praises NHS as he opens up about death of mother from rare disease

LBC
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Sir Keir Starmer praised the NHS today as he spoke out about the death of his mother after a long battle with a rare debilitating disease.

The leader of the Labour Party opened up about his mother Josephine, a nurse who died just two weeks before he was elected as an MP in 2015.

He said he spent a lot of time in high dependency units as a child with his mother and described watching NHS staff saving her life as an “incredible thing”.

Sir Keir said his mother lost the ability to speak which meant she had never spoken to his children and ended up having her leg amputated.

His mother battled with Still’s Disease, a rare and incurable condition which causes painful swelling of joints and organs, for more than 50 years.

Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria clapping for carers during the coronavirus pandemic
PA

He made the comments during his new monthly phone-in show on LBC radio “Call Keir”.

He said: “My mum had a very rare illness all her life and she spent a long time in high dependency units. She died unfortunately just two weeks before I was elected as a Member of Parliament.

“It was called Still’s Disease. She got it when she was 11, it’s where your immune system attacks itself.

“They discovered steroids helped because she was due to be in a wheelchair by the time she was 20. She was determined to keep on walking. But the steroids and the disease together towards the last years of her life meant she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t move her limbs, she couldn’t speak.

“She’s never spoken to our children and in the end ended up having her leg amputated.

“As a boy and a teenager I spent a lot of time in high dependency units with my mum – watching people in the NHS saving her life was an incredible thing.

“She was the longest ever steroids patient…she was determined to have children and to walk for as long as possible.

“Unfortunately the steroids…after a number of years the consequences were fierce for her and absolutely destroyed her ability to move.”

Sir Keir was brought up in Oxted on the Surrey/Kent border and his father Rodney was a toolmaker in a factory.

He attended a local grammar school before going to read law at Leeds University, and then on to Oxford. He became a barrister, specialising in human rights issues, including the death penalty, and advising the Northern Ireland Policing Board. He was appointed director of public prosecutions in 2008.

Sir Keir said his parents were staunch Labour supporters and named him after the party’s first parliamentary leader, James Keir Hardie.

He added: “My dad was a great Labour man. My dad was a toolmaker, he worked in a factory all his life and my mum was a nurse. We were a Labour family.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in