Sir Keir Starmer declares gifts and freebies totalling more than £100,000 - the highest of any MP

[TealTraybake]

Perhaps the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire needs his freebies because MPs aren’t paid enough. Or perhaps he’s just the knight commander of the most astonishing hypocrisy.

They are on here every single day. It’s obviously being generated by the Conservative Party. They are always starting them on here. It’s cringe-worthy.

Absolutely. Labour like to portray themselves as better than the average politician but they are equally dodgy. just in different ways. It's the hypocrisy that grates.

Tory propaganda threads?! Are you having a laugh?!! Your dear leader has publicly shat the bed by taking vast inappropriate freebies for years and has been shown to be a lying hypocrite.

Soz ClubOrange but this ain’t propaganda- this is the truth of the sleazy and dishonest behaviour KS has been indulging in, much as you can’t admit it.

@FOJN

See also the story about the 4 million pound donation to the Labour party from a Cayman Island (tax haven) registered hedge fund, accepted in a one week window which meant the public would not be made aware of it until after the election. A hedge fund with investments in fossil fuels, arms and private healthcare.

😑 I didn’t even know about that. What a repulsive hypocritical fake lump he is.

Ha yep

None from me either. Did not vote in last election.

There is clearly a lot of Daily Mail frothers on here trying to spread their nicknames and get them to catch on.

As someone who wanted Labour to win, it pains me to agree with them, but to some extent I do.

Everyone else in this country has to clothe themselves for work. For some of us this involves dressing up and meeting people. We have to fund our own glasses.

He doesn't need multiple pairs of glasses for different 'looks' or someone to buy his suits. His wife doesn't need to accompany him to things as an adornment - this is such an outdated concept. And if she wants to go to things, she can buy her own clothes. Many many people would applaud her for renting dresses or wearing the same thing more than once (shock horror!). The Daily Mail will always pick on things, but the optics of all these freebies is much worse.

Don't even get me started on their free tickets to random concerts! Next he'll be saying "we're all in it together".

The Tories were worse, but I didn't vote for them and knew they were awful. The whole parliament is corrupt with its subsidised food and drink whilst food bank usage is increasing.

There are always multiple threads criticising whichever party is in power, usually new ones daily.

Did you think all the anti Tory threads were Labour propaganda?

If politics threads you don't like bore then I'm sure there are other SM platforms where you will be able to find an echo chamber.

I was a Lib Dem voter and have never voted either Labour or Conservative, I think ALL of our politics is rotten.

TealTraybake

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-given-4m-from-tax-haven-based-hedge-fund-with-shares-in-oil-and-arms

He doesn't need multiple pairs of glasses for different 'looks' or someone to buy his suits.
He should look at Zelenskyy. Wearing the same fatigues all the time hasn't compromised him being listened to on the world stage.

Renting dresses? he'd be roasted by the media if she did that, no matter the sustainability of doing this.

Carrie Johnson managed it

Starmer gets roughly 15 x my income. I buy my own clothes and glasses. I'd buy my own clothes and glasses if I were PM, it just wouldn't cross my mind to panhandle for them. Starmer doing this means his personality is pure scab, always has been, always will be.

Victoria Sponger has said she isn't doing appearances either so she certainly doesn't need anyone to buy her fancy frocks. Carrie Johnson rented clothes herself and we certainly weren't funding about May's or Truss's spouses getting free outfits.

Genuinely can't work out if this is satire.

It has been clumsy and inept politics. The gifts may not matter much in 4 years time.

They have had several years to work out a plan for how they would start to work.
There are advisors such as Pat McFadden and the famous Sue Gray. Yet they make elementary mistakes.
Step 1. take money from pensioners, Typical earnings £15,000
Step 2. give big pay rise to railway workers. Minimum earnings £68,000
Who has the broadest shoulders to support the coming austerity?

Thanks for that article. Just read it with increasing nausea.

Wonder how the Labour fanbase will justify this. Oh I know they won’t. It will be ignored as if it didn’t happen.

A brief extract

‘The party has received more than £8m from businesses or people linked to the financial industry since Starmer became leader in 2020 and now boasts two multi-million-pound donors from the world of hedge funds; Quadrature and Taylor, who has managed several billion-dollar funds over his career.

While Quadrature had not donated to Labour before May, one of its senior employees has contributed significantly to the party under Starmer. Daniel Luhde-Thompson, a strategic adviser at the firm, has given the party more than £500,000 this year, according to the Electoral Commission.

Transparency campaigners have warned Quadrature’s huge donation raises questions about what the financial sector is getting in return.

Rose Whiffen, senior research officer at Transparency International UK told openDemocracy: “When the public see political parties relying on such large sums of money in donations from private sources, it understandably raises questions as to in whose interest politicians are working and can give the impression our democracy is for sale.

Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski told openDemocracy that the donation shows Labour now “stands for multi-millionaires and billionaires over our working-class communities”.

Polanski said: “Far from being the party in service of working people, Starmer’s Labour Party seems indebted to the bankers and bosses who profit from pillaging our public services and our planet. ‘

Bless. You know what they say, we judge people by our own standards.

His wife should buy her own clothes - if she wants to accept freebies tax her on them

@Choux are you seriously trying to claim that a man with a declared income of £404k, plus his wife earns her own money, can’t afford 20 dresses??? If that is the case, the man seriously needs to learn to budget!

Interesting item in Times yesterday. Lady S could have been loaned clothes from British designers. That would be ethical and transparent and a good shop window for our designers.
I repeat my earlier remark. Inept.

I really do not like Corbyn. At all. However I’d rather him in charge of Labour than Starmer - at least Corbyn was clear and honest in his direction. You know you’d be getting an NHS glasses wearing hippy.

Starmer is a feckless dishonest fool. Benn, Smith etc will be turning in their graves.

And then she could have put them up for sale at an auction for charity...

All of this add up to less than Boris Johnson spent on decorating his flat.
Also whether you like what he’s doing or not (I don’t) he’s not done anything illegal.

The legality / illegality is not the point. It's the hypocrisy that rankles.
If they are like this - after less than 3 months in power - then where will they end up?

….and if this the the level of hypocrisy that we discover in less than 3 months, what else have they been/are they lying to us about?

Also what favours and preferment have they granted to their cronies as a result of these backhanders?

Sleaze, sleaze and more sleaze. They’ve lost everyone’s trust.

@Dandeliontea123 I think it is a loan, the clothes are handed back.