Asked if Starmer was the real Darcy, Fielding said: “Well, I think he’s fantastic. But no, I’ve never met him.
Darcy is not in fact based on the Labour leader, she insisted, though she thinks they are very similar.
It has been one of the more intriguing rumours about the leader of the opposition, that Keir Starmer was the inspiration for Mark Darcy, the buttoned-up lawyer who battled with the rather more open-shirted Daniel Cleaver for Bridget Jones’s heart.
Starmer has always said he has no idea if he inspired Fielding to create the Darcy character.