Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding had a rather interesting answer when put on the spot about whether Keir Starmer inspired the character of Mark Darcy.

At the premiere of Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy on Wednesday evening, BBC News asked Helen about the rumours the now-PM was in her mind when she was putting together Bridget’s love interest, played in the films by Colin Firth.

She teased: “All I’ll say about that is that if you look at early pictures of Colin in the film and pictures of Keir Starmer in a wig, they’re awfully similar…”

However, back in 2020, four years before Starmer was elected PM, Helen told a rather different story.

Speaking to Radio Times, Helen said that while she thought the Labour leader was “fantastic”, she’d never actually met him.

“They are very similar, though,” the author quickly added. “He’s so good and decent and intelligent, but so buttoned up. I always want to say: ‘Come on, Keir, loosen your tie, ruffle up your hair.’

“He doesn’t think of himself as sexy, but he’s really sexy. And when he and Boris [Johnson, the then-PM] spar, it does remind me of Mark and Daniel [Cleaver].”

Starmer told ITV in 2020 that he didn’t actually know if he was the inspiration for Mark Darcy.

The then-leader of the opposition claimed at the time: “Everybody asks me this question when they should be asking her because she knows the answer and I don’t.”

The new Bridget Jones movie reintroduces the titular heroine at a very different point in her life, raising two children as a single mother following the death of her beloved husband.

It is based on Helen’s 2014 book of the same name, and is the fourth film in the series.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy arrives in UK cinemas on Friday 14 February.