FIELDING QUESTIONS

For some time, it has been rumoured that Bridget Jones’ love interest Mark Darcy, far from simply being based on his Pride and Prejudice namesake, was inspired by now Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer. Mark Darcy was played in the three Bridget Jones feature films by Colin Firth, who of course was also Mr Darcy in the definitive 1995 BBC serial adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Now squashing the Starmer connection, Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding told Radio Times, ‘Well, I think he’s fantastic. But no, I’ve never met him. They are very similar, though. 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 spar, it does remind me of Mark and Daniel.’

If Darcy was based on a real person Fielding isn’t telling, saying on Desert Island Discs last year, about the time she first created Bridget Jones, ‘I had several different boyfriends, all very gorgeous. It’s amazing the number of people that lay claim to be Daniel or Mark, including Keir Starmer.’

• Meanwhile, more terribly exciting news for Bridget, whose diary has been named as the most popular romantic book of the last sixty years, in a poll to mark the anniversary of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

‘In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding gave us a new genre which has been endlessly copied but never surpassed,’ said RNA president Katie Fforde.

The RNA also came up with individual winners for each decade of its existence, all of which shaped the publishing zeitgeist at the time: 1960s – Frederica, Georgette Heyer 1970s – The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough 1980s – Riders, Jilly Cooper 1990s – Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding 2000s – PS I Love You, Cecelia Ahern

2010s – Me Before You, Jojo Moyes