The most interesting rumor about the Leader of the Opposition was that Kerr Starmer was the inspiration of Mark Darcy, a button-up lawyer fighting with the more open-shirted Daniel Cleaver for Bridget Jones’ heart.

Now Helen Fielding, author of the book Bridget Jones, has finally put the matter to rest. Darcy is not really based on labor leaders, he insisted, although he thinks they are very similar.

In an interview with the Radio Times, Fielding said Starmer reminded him of Darcy, as Colin Firth did in Bridget Jones films, especially during the PM’s question.

Asked if Starmer was a real Darcy, Fielding said: “Well, I think he’s great. But no, I never met him. Although they are very similar. She is very nice and decent and cute, but so button up. I always want to say: ‘Come on, Kirr, loosen your bonds, roll your hair’ ‘She doesn’t think she’s sexy, but she’s really sexy. And when he and Boris spar, it reminds me of Mark and Daniel. “

When Bridget first appeared in a newspaper column in 1995, Starmer was a human rights lawyer who filed a pamphlet against McDonald’s against environmentalists who criticized the company’s practices and worked for the National Union of Mineworkers.

There was a “singleton” about the town of Fielding at the time of Bridget’s birth, when The Independent asked if she would write a first-person column about trying to find a boyfriend in London. “I did not say because [ironically enough] I thought it would be embarrassing and revealing. Then Charlie Leadbeater, a veteran editor, suggested I write as a fictional character and I said “Yessss!” “I thought a few years later he wrote.

He later became open about the fact that Bridget was partly created in his own image, but he never revealed who inspired his character’s love interest. As Starmer’s career grew, he first became director of public prosecution and then Jeremy Corbyn as Labor leader, and rumors spread that he was the real Mark Darcy.

Fielding people were happy to guess. “I had several different boyfriends, all very nice,” she told Desert Island Disc in July. The number of people claiming to be Daniel or Mark, including Care Starmer, is staggering.

Starmer has always said that he inspired Fielding to create the Darcy character, but he has no idea. He told ITV in January: “Everyone asks this question when I should have asked him because he knows the answer and I don’t.”

When questioned by Starmer when he appeared on the Desert Island disc last month, he said he had already come up with the idea that Darcy was not on his basis.

Now though the case is closed.