Why Keir Starmer’s wife Victoria should read about Marie Antoinette and the ‘Affair of the Necklace’
“There was a touch of Marie Antoinette hauteur about Lady Starmer’s appearance at London Fashion Week yesterday, sporting a flamboyant designer outfit,” thundered the Daily Mail. “If she is remotely embarrassed about having accepted thousands of pounds worth of high-end clothes from a Labour donor, she certainly wasn’t showing it.”
Another way of looking at Victoria Starmer’s decision to spend time with the fashionistas might have been to hail the Prime Minister’s wife as a new Jackie Kennedy, lauding her for bringing an invigorating sense of glamour and style to Downing Street. A reportedly “no nonsense” occupational therapist who works in an NHS hospital, she did not look remotely out of place.
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Hide AdHowever, in our straitened times, this interpretation is probably to be found only in the imagination of the most naive Labour party press officer. With Keir Starmer’s government cutting winter fuel payments for most pensioners, such an image is unlikely to go down well with many.
Clearly, the Conservatives sense an opportunity to make some political capital with calls for an investigation into the Starmers’ links to Labour peer Lord Alli, who reportedly covered the cost of a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Starmer. Tory MP Andrew Griffith said: "It beggars belief that the Prime Minister thinks it's acceptable that pensioners on £13,000 a year can afford to heat their home when he earns 12 times that, but apparently can't afford to clothe himself or his wife.”


Cringe-worthy arguments
This has forced Labour into a distinctively awkward position. In an attempt to tough the row out and demonstrate he has done nothing wrong, Keir Starmer has apparently signalled he will carry on taking gifts from Lord Alli – an argument possible to make in theory, but best left untested in practice.
Even David Lammy – the Foreign Secretary, no less – found himself putting the world’s many troubles to one side to stick up for the Starmers. His line of defence was to suggest the couple had accepted the gifts in order to “look their best” for the country. How patriotic!
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Hide AdOther countries, Lammy noted, provided lavish, taxpayer-funded budgets for their leaders’ clothes, but the parsimonious Starmer later stressed he “certainly” did not think public money should be used in this way.
Even the most diehard of Labour supporters must surely be starting to cringe at all this. It’s not exactly ‘Giftgate’ yet, but if things carry on in this way, it may become a scandal worthy of the name.
Marie Antoinette’s demonisation
Of course, there will be some – possibly including the Starmers – who view this as rather trivial, a row about clothes that will soon blow over. The Prime Minister said “all MPs get gifts”, which sounds more than a little dismissive, and stressed he had “asked my team” to ensure he was complying with the rules about declaring gifts.
However, whatever the rights and wrongs of the Starmers’ acceptance of gifts from a wealthy supporter, the demonisation of women in the public eye has a history that is long and shameful, but also highly successful.
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Hide AdThe name Marie Antoinette, invoked so prominently by the Daily Mail, is loaded with meaning to this day. Dramatically overshadowing her husband Louis XVI, she remains an abiding symbol of monarchical oppression.
A ‘quality of vampirism’
In the Rest is History podcast, historian Tom Holland described the extent to which the French queen became a hate figure. “At the time, she is seen by enthusiasts for the Revolution as the absolute embodiment of everything that prompted it, she is the kind of incarnation of the Ancient Regime, arrogance, of aristocratic splendour and of a kind of quality of vampirism that has leeched the French people of what should be rightfully theirs,” he said.
However, many of the stories about her were invented. She did not say “let them eat cake” (originally misreported as the less snappy “let them eat brioche”). More recent writers on the French Revolution, Holland noted, have expressed sympathy for Marie Antoinette because of the extent of the lies told about her.
Affair of the Diamond Necklace
One of the worst, and most powerful, was later dubbed as the “Affair of the Diamond Necklace”. As described by the Chateau Versailles website, the story began when the royal jewellers made an extravagant necklace containing nearly 650 diamonds. It was presented to Louis XVI in 1782, but the queen, sensibly and frugally, turned it down.
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Hide AdHowever, a confidence trickster, the self-styled Countess of La Motte, then persuaded Cardinal Rohan, who had fallen out of favour with the Queen, that Marie Antoinette actually wanted the necklace and he could win back her good graces by acting as an intermediary. He handed over the necklace during a night-time meeting with someone who he appears to have thought was the Queen. It was actually La Motte, who took the necklace and disappeared.
The affair became public after the jewellers started to ask the Queen to be paid and she, knowing nothing about it, refused. Eventually, the Cardinal was put on trial, but was cleared in a blow to Marie Antoinette’s reputation. La Motte was convicted, and branded with a V for voleuse (thief), but still the damage was done in the minds of many. At a time when France’s economy was teetering on the brink of collapse and people were starving as bread prices soared, for them it was obvious that their heartless, greedy queen had coveted a ridiculous luxury.
Given her later execution, it is a most extreme lesson from history about the real dangers of bad PR. I hesitate to say this (even as someone who pays little attention to royal news, I’m aware of the surprisingly strong passions the topic arouses) but I see parallels in the treatment of Meghan Markle, who is sometimes portrayed as if she were public enemy number one despite having done little to nothing to deserve it.
So Keir and Victoria Starmer should beware of donors bearing gifts. Sometimes stories can take on a life of their own, even false ones.
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