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

My wrists and ankles are still neat and pretty.

They may not be to your taste @user47 but they sell well to mid-life women who don't want to show off their abs in the latest styles! At 68, and fairly fit and toned, I don't want to reveal skin to anyone except DH. Wrists and ankles excepted.

All those dull crumpled Me + Em dresses don't sell themselves you know 😂

Before I retired, I worked mostly at board level, as a self-employed contractor. I could hardly turn up in a company branded polo shirt and cargo trousers like my DH provides for his team. So I bought the nice suits out of my profits. One navy, one black, one brown, and rotated them with a suite of blouses. The same as any professional woman working in an office. There was no tax allowance to pay for them.

All of them are a shower of self absorbed, self serving twats. I despair!!!

The majority seem to be vile, greedy leeches.

This is the truth no matter what colour the rosette is.

I have no problem with donations for campaign funding but apart from that I don't think our elected representatives should be able to profit from their position as an MP.

That means no free gifts of any description and no second jobs. I also don't think they should be able to take on unpaid roles such as trustees for charities which receive any public funding and I don't think they should hold "unpaid" advisory roles for "think tanks" aka lobby groups.

My MP looks like he's already lining up a nice little earner in the arms/defence business for when he decides to leave politics. Does anyone seriously think that Nick Clegg would be earning 15 million a year at meta if he hadn't been Deputy PM.

We had anti-corruption training at my last job and it was made very clear that gift giving was unacceptable and a form of bribery

@TheBers2024 because under current tax rules, clothes (unless company branded) and not allowed as a business expense. Unless you are the PM or his wife of course! It’s bullshit!

Seriously?

Why can't they buy clothes as business expenses if they need something to wear to work.

Why would you accept private donations and lend yourself open to claims of influence or favouritism.

I don't know either. My DH works in financial services and he can't accept anything. He is offered loads of great days out but has to turn them all down.

He was thinking what all left of centre types in power think; “the rules don’t apply to me. We are always right - don’t question us. We know best. You don’t understand” 🤣🤣🤣

Disappointed Labour voter here. Don't know why politicians need to accept gifts like this.

@Birdscratch well then perhaps they should do what the rest of us do and literally and figuratively “cut our cloth”.
I’ve been looking for a new winter coat this weekend. A lovely one popped up on my FB feed. But it was £10k and a Valentino. Since I have no value to lord whathisface, I’m fairly certain no one is going to be buying that for me. And nor should they.
The Starmers should buy what THEY can afford, like the rest of us do. And, let’s face it, they aren’t skint!
That hypocrital asshole is going to batter so many of us with tax rises. And the attitude of so many is well “ you can afford it”. And the Starmers can’t? The only difference is the Starmers can and clearly are happy to offset the hit HIS family might take, with freebies for the all the nice shit from wealthy donors. He needs to have a think about how broad his own shoulders are!

Well, it sort of was. Mandleson had to resign twice!!

What was he thinking?

'Difficult decisions', 'pain', 'broadest shoulders'

And that expense

Actually they didn’t. Cherie Bliar made big fuss about having to spend thousands of her own money on clothes when accompanying her husband, and Samantha Cameron hired designer outfits on many occasions rather than buy, or beg from party donors. Starmers £76odd thousand of gifts accepted is the highest of all MPs.

On the day after the election there was a whole thread on here about how she had got herself a reasonably priced dress because she's only on NHS salary.

Ok, but David Lammy said that substantial sums are paid by the US for the President’s and First Lady’s clothes, so their clothes can’t be “challenged”, whatever that means.

He was justifying private donation to the Starmers by contrast to public payment in the US.

They are lying scumbags and I can't believe anyone was daft enough to think that Labour would act any differently to the Tory Party they (and most of MN) have been slagging off all these years. It applies to almost all politicians I should think.

Thanks, that is interesting to know.

NI doesn't have the council tax system of GB.
It has domestic rates based on the property value. The rates applied to the property value comprise a regional rate that is set by Stormont each year and a district rate that is set by each local council each year.

If you read the USA today article linked it says of Michelle Obama, ‘She doesn't borrow gowns from designers but sometimes accepts them as gifts to the nation, as she did the dramatic blue Carolina Herrera gown she wore in February to the state dinner for France.’ It also says that no taxpayer’s money is used for her clothes but says nothing about political donations.

Sam Cam has her own business. It makes clothes for people in public life and senior jobs. Not everyone wears a Tesco polo shirt to work.

When you’re talking about dresses costing several thousand pounds for state occasions then, yes, anyone who didn’t inherit their wealth would struggle.

I'm not sure Lammy deserves that extra grace and understanding

This made me laugh though

YANBU. Those “with the broadest shoulders” should buy their own fucking clothes!l
Kier Starmer is going to deliver a god awful budget in a few weeks and he’s going to do it wearing glasses and clothes that someone else paid for? If he cannot fathom how utterly hypocritical that is, he has no business trying to run the country.
All of them are a shower of self absorbed, self serving twats. I despair!!!

It seems Lammy misled the nation in his answers too. He said that, in contrast to the UK, the US First Lady gets public money for clothing.

Apparently not:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2014/06/02/first-ladys-clothes-cost-how-much/77297460/

I am very happy to accept that Mr Lammy was badly briefed or was genuinely mistaken.