How the King will appoint Starmer as prime minister in ancient ‘kissing of hands’ ceremony

Before Sir Keir Starmer addresses the nation from Downing Street, he must first make that all important journey to Buckingham Palace.

Tracked overhead by helicopters from television news stations, his convoy will wind its way through the streets of London before pulling in through the imposing wrought iron gates.

As head of state, it is the King’s duty to appoint the prime minister who will lead His Majesty’s Government and that first audience will be as equally memorable for the monarch as for his guest.

It will be the first time the King, 75, has appointed a prime minister following a general election, a major constitutional duty that coincides with his ongoing cancer treatment.

Sir Keir will become the King’s third prime minister, and the first Labour one.

However, the pair have met on numerous occasions before and appear to have a warm rapport.

They were seen engrossed in conversation at a reception in St James’s Palace before the Ukraine Recovery Conference in 2023, and photographed exchanging friendly greetings in the aftermath of Elizabeth II’s death.

In 2021, footage surfaced showing the then-human rights barrister telling a film-maker in 2005: “I also got made a Queen’s Counsel which is odd, since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy.”

But when the monarch died, he paid a warm tribute, saying in the Commons: “For the 70 glorious years of her reign, our Queen was at the heart of this nation’s life.

“She did not simply reign over us, she lived alongside us, she shared in our hopes and our fears, our joy, and our pain. Our good times and our bad.”

He also spoke of the King’s new reign, praising Charles’s social and eco-credentials.

Buckingham Palace courtiers cleared two slots in the King’s diary for Friday; the first at 11am and the second, at midday.

With Sir Keir having secured the predicted landslide victory, Rishi Sunak will be invited to the palace first for a “departure audience” in which he will formally tender his resignation.

The outgoing premier will be invited to bring his spouse and children, should he wish and afterwards, will depart the palace privately.

Then, at midday, Sir Keir will be whisked through the gates to be greeted at the sovereign’s entrance by an equerry and Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary.

The two visits will be timed with military precision and there will be no chance of one politician running into the other.

However, while both will take place in the private Audience Room, they will be distinctly different in tone.

The incoming prime minister will be invited to bring his spouse, Lady Victoria Starmer, who would be invited in towards the end of the meeting, but not their children.

The audience will last around half an hour. The meeting will be formally recorded in the Court Circular as the “kissing of hands”, although it will more likely feature a brisk hand shake.

The historic moment will be recorded by a photographer before the pair get on with constitutional business behind closed doors as the King invites his new prime minister to form a government.

As with all of their many weekly audiences to come, the meeting will remain private.

However, many of Sir Keir’s predecessors have been unable to resist recounting that first memorable encounter.

Sir Tony Blair recalled how he tripped on a rug and “practically fell into the Queen’s hands” when he went to the Palace to be appointed in 1997.

Gordon Brown described his first audience with Elizabeth II as “a congenial business-like conversation about the work that lay ahead” while Margaret Thatcher’s husband Denis noticed that the guards on duty at the Palace saluted as he and the new prime minister left, having not done so when they arrived.

Liz Truss, who has now lost her seat, revealed the late Queen told her “I’ll see you next week” during their first and only official meeting at Balmoral on Sept 6 2022.

Until then, it had been extremely rare for any monarch to appoint a prime minister anywhere other than Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.

In 1885, Lord Salisbury was summoned there by Queen Victoria and asked to form a government. He accepted at Balmoral and returned to London, with Queen Victoria appointing a government a week later at Windsor Castle.

In 1908 Herbert Asquith travelled to Biarritz, France, for an audience with King Edward VII.

But the decision to bid farewell to Boris Johnson and appoint Ms Truss at Balmoral was deemed a necessary concession to the late Queen’s failing health. She died just two days later.

On Friday, after meeting the King, Sir Keir will leave the palace via the Ministers’ Staircase before being driven through the front gates in a ministerial car.

He will be headed straight for Downing Street, barely one mile away, and that all important lectern set up before a bank of waiting cameras, the nation watching on.