to believe Lady Starmer should pay for her own clothes and personal stylists?

To me accepting a knighthood is much worse than accepting a season's worth of questionable clothes. How can he pretend to be a socialist while expecting people to call him 'sir'.

Does he genuinely think some people are more equal than others?

I’m curious as to how it came about. How did the conversation go?
Lord Alli, “ Hey Vic, no offence but your look could do with freshening up. Let me buy you some strides. I’ll get Keir some specs while I’m at it so he can see you better.”
Or did someone at the Labour Party decide that part of a donation made to the party should be used for “branding” and allocate the money to a “look” for Lady S. Bad call.
She’s perfectly capable of dressing herself.

Dismiss this as non at your peril.

MPs should serve all their constitutes, but most of them kowtowed the party line recently rather than support their constitutes.

Starmer receives "gifts" from a donor. In whose interest does he work? When you look at what he has actually done recently it's easy to see in whose interest he operates..and it is not the majority.

You cannot serve two masters.

Alistair Campbell being lauded as the moral arbitrator is a new one on me 🤪

Of course this is not a non story, the virtue signalling smarm of the Labour Party for the past five years about the Tories was always naive and unforgiving. Now I hope their fall from ‘virtue’ is a hard one. Anyone who is an unforgiving virtue signaller deserves their fall when their inevitable hypocrisy is revealed.

Lammy’s “defence” was utterly ridiculous. I don’t think it’s arrogance or entitlement, I think it’s a government without experienced advisors or one that doesn’t listen to the. I’m hoping to hear what Alistair Campbell’s view of this is because I’m 100% sure this wouldn’t have happened on his watch. It’s a rookie error from a government that really should know better. It should employ knowledgeable and experienced comms advisors and bloody well listen to them.

I don’t think it is a lack of political house, or rather, that’s a side effect. It’s arrogance and entitlement; they’ve convinced themselves that they are beyond reproach after 14 years in opposition to a government that gave them so much ammunition.

And they’re sitting there now, wondering what all the fuss is about. How dare these people question us. We are right. You can hear it in Lammy’s attempted defence of the position Starmer finds himself in. He even had the cheek to say, “but the position doesn’t come with a a clothing allowance” 😂😂.

Er, no, multi millionaires are expected to buy their own clothes…like every other prime minister and spouse I can remember. Even the grifters like the Bliars and Johnson’s bought their own clothes!

@PandoraSox nope. Fully British 😊 And the spelling of her name doesn’t change the fact that she and the rest of them are raging hypocrites does it?

"Asshats" is an interesting turn of phrase! Are you American? Perhaps that is why you can't spell Rayner's name correctly?

Yet both Carrie Johnson and the Princess of Wales have hired dresses for big occasions in recent years - more environmentally friendy as well as cheaper.

Your e seems to be faulty,

Precisely- it is the lack of nous, more than anything, I find upsetting. There’s also something distasteful about pouncing on the freebies the minute they have the chance, while telling us life is going to get hard. I (naively) hoped Labour would be better.

If you vote blue Labour, you get what's on the tin.

In every job I’ve had taking gifts has always been mentioned in inductions and a very big no no
in my last company people have been sacked for accepting gifts
anyone explain why these lot are different

hilarious they were the first to shout about other parties taking gift then fuck me they do the same

the decent from the moral high ground seems to of been rapid

Let's not drag up trousergate.😁

What arrangements about clothes did Theresa May have? I thought she bought them herself. She definitely had a local boutique that sourced stuff for her.

She wasn't an elected member of parliament or married to an elected member of our legislature.

Don't the Royals have a system of wearing carefully researched clothes in order to promote UK designers? I think that's a positive. I think I remember that a pair of jeans Meghan wore secured the future of Huit jeans in West Wales. This isn't that.

@PandoraSox i don’t find it funny at all that Raynor et al are all hypocritical, self serving asshats. All the parties are as bad as each other and it’s not funny in any way that THIS shower is the best we can find to represent us.

I was talking about Rayner's handling of her donation declarations. As for the housing stuff, that has been rehashed and rebutted a thousand times on MN.

It is funny how Rayner really sets off the froth mode in some posters.

Same, I'm pretty shocked by those saying its not a big deal or who cares or youtubers do it so why not them :S

These donations arent just a PR package of ooh try my product, its to buy influence or its to buy access or some other benefit off the man running the country.
I hope gifts bribes to individuals are banned in the future, there are lots of industries or jobs where that is the case. Prime ministers shouldn't be for sale, buy your own fucking clothes and soft furnishings.

To be honest for me the anger stems from
‘You will all feel pain, but I will feel rather snazzy in my free expensive suits’. It’s tone deaf.

Some shocking responses. This is not a non story. I am so angry. Starmer has accepted "gifts "..... do people think these gifts came freely? Of course not. He didn't even declare all of it, but regardless politicians should not accept anything. They need to be above this. I work in public sector..cannot accept anything.

Against the backdrop of lies about why they got rid of wfa, the lies about the rise of the "far right", the release of prisoners......

Absolutly shocking from labour.

Would it be any different if designers were donating clothes for her to wear as free advertising? I seem to remember designers giving clothes to Princess Diana & there was no uproar then.

And the party have done this to themselves.

£2000 tickets for a fight or something? Not good. But not as bad at nearly £100,000. At least the rest he earned.

And per my previous post, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at Starmer’s donation’s had he not been preparing us for austerity and hardship. If he had raised the tax-free allowance and put more money into people’s pockets, I would not find it so hypocritical.

So who will people want? A politician who takes tens of thousands in gifts and makes us poor…or a politician who will likely take tens of thousands in gifts, but allow us to keep more of our money.

This is the question that many will now be asking themselves.