12-05-2025
Police investigate fire at Keir Starmer's home
A fire at Sir Keir Starmer's north London home that broke out in the early hours of Monday is being investigated by police.
The property in Countess Road, Tufnell Park, was attended by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) after a report was made after 1.30am on Monday.
Sir Keir is letting out the four-bedroom home in north London, which is believed to be worth about £2 million.
The LFB attended and the fire was extinguished. Police said the entrance to the terraced house was damaged, but nobody was injured.
A Downing Street spokesman said: 'The Prime Minister thanks the emergency services for their work. The incident is subject to a live investigation and we won't be commenting further.'
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'On Monday, May 12 at 01:35hrs, police were alerted by the London Fire Brigade to reports of a fire at a residential address in Countess Road, NW5.
'Officers attended the scene. Damage was caused to the property's entrance, nobody was hurt. The fire is being investigated and cordons remain in place while enquiries continue.'
In a separate incident last year, three people were found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestine demonstration outside the house.
Leonorah Ward, 21, Daniel Formentin, 24, and Zosia Lewis, 23, were also found guilty of breaching court bail but avoided jail over the protest.
The trio hung a banner outside the house that said 'Starmer stop the killing', surrounded by red handprints, on Apr 9 2024 in protest against his stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The protesters, from the Youth Demand organisation, also placed four rows of children's shoes in front of the property to represent children killed in Gaza.
Lady Starmer said she felt 'a bit sick' when she returned to the home where the family was living at the time and her son saw the protest.
'I didn't want to stop [the car] and be obvious,' she told the court.
Asked how seeing the protest had made her feel, she replied: 'I felt a bit sick, to be perfectly honest. I felt apprehensive and uncomfortable.'
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, was also targeted by pro-Palestine protesters at his home in north London last month.
Two female activists, also from the Youth Demand group, laid child-sized body bags at his doorstep and erected a sign over his hedge which read 'Lammy Stop Arming Genocide'.
Mr Lammy was not at home during the protest by the activists, who were told by police officers to leave and not to return for at least three months.
The fire at Sir Keir's home is likely to fuel fears about the safety of MPs that have grown in recent years after a number of incidents targeting elected politicians.
Safety measures have been stepped up in the wake of two MPs being killed in the past decade.
Jo Cox, a Labour MP, was shot in June 2016, while Sir David Amess, a Conservative MP, was stabbed at his constituency surgery in 2021.
