Prime Minister tells us he's worried about toxic division in the UK
Sir Keir Starmer has been talking to the Pete Wick's Man Made podcast
Sir Keir Starmer has told us of his concerns about a divided UK - something that he says really hit home when his niece and her wife were attacked in the street for being gay.
Pete Wicks interviewed Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his podcast ‘Man Made’
Starmer on 'toxic division' in the UK
During the conversation, Sir Keir Starmer talked about being furious about a homophobic attack on his niece and her wife and that he's worried about toxic division in the country.
The Prime Minister said “I was furious. Really, really angry. The idea that blokes would beat a woman up for holding the hand of her wife.
"This goes to something I'm really worried about in this country, which is, a political question above all else, which is I worry that we're becoming a country of toxic division. Or at least that's where some people want to take us.
“We have to reach into that space to ask, what are we about as a country? What is it to be, British?
"The challenge to that, I think, in 2025, is the toxic division that is being perpetrated by some now, that preys more on what differences do we have? How can we tear this apart then? Then how can we bring this together? And that has reached a level that I'm very concerned about.”
The Prime Minister on the challenges facing young men
On the current biggest challenge facing young men, and especially teenagers, the Prime Minister said “it would probably be the difficult search for a role model.”
“People like Andrew Tate and that sort of person become quite attractive to young men … on one level, that gives them a sense of being successful, being rich and famous. On the other hand, it comes with a whole baggage of misogyny and toxic division. Steering young men away from that path to a different path is quite tricky.”
“To give young men a sense of worth is really hard. I think a lot of the other challenges around what young men get up to, what they think and how they behave probably hangs off that central question of ‘who am I’ and ‘what's my role’. Generations ago that was quite easily answered. It isn't now, and that's a challenge.”
The Prime Minister also spoke candidly about how his understanding of masculinity and male role models was shaped by his father when he was growing up – and how this changed after he became a father.
"My kids have changed me as a person, as a man and my sense of what it is to be a man," he said.
The PM also reflected on how he coped with the tragic loss of his brother Nick, being by his side when he received his lung cancer diagnosis and how he coped running the country through such a difficult personal time.
"This is the hardest thing about my job,” he shared. “When something intensely personal happens and you just need a space, particularly with grief in my view, and yet there isn't really the space ... it's intensely difficult".