Keir Starmer put questions about the “most exciting thing he’s ever done” to bed last night at the Guardian hustings.
The Labour leadership hopeful has attracted some unwarranted attention since appearing on LBC with presenter Nick Ferrari on Monday.
Starmer had said: “I’ve done lots of exciting things. Playing football, going to football with my kids”, which was met with mockery online.
But pressed on the issue last night he delivered a powerful response to his critics.
He said:
“These questions are supposed to be the measure of us and they are so ridiculous. In the last four weeks my wife’s mum has died, we’d been in intensive care with her before she died for 17 days.
“I had been trying to be the best husband I could be to my wife, the best dad I could be to my grieving children. Then I’m asked ‘What is the most exciting thing you’ve ever done?’ And I’m judged on that.
“I know who I am.”
The response has since gone viral online, with a tweet posted by Helen Pidd of the Guardian garnering close to 20,000 interactions in the first 12 hours.
Keir Starmer gets a massive round of applause at the #GuardianLive hustings in Manchester when asked if it’s true the most exciting thing he has done is taken his kids to football. This was his very powerful answer: pic.twitter.com/NZyNIvljp4
— Helen Pidd (@helenpidd) February 25, 2020
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