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.

🥺 That is a vivid image. I’m surprised someone hasn’t drawn a cartoon with this very image. Perhaps there’s one in Private Eye..

The £50k donor was reimbursed though. After all the controversy, Johnson ended up paying for the flat refurbishment himself (or at least for anything over the usual £30k allowance);

In March [2021] Downing Street insisted Johnson had met all the costs personally. It later turned out others had originally footed the bill but he then came up with the money himself and the original payees were refunded.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/06/what-did-second-investigation-into-boris-johnson-flat-refurb-find

The so-called 'gold wallpaper' cost around £2,000 (not £200,000!) and formed a small part of the bill which the Electoral Commission stated as £112,549.12 (£200,000 was only an estimate for the total refurbishment and items of furniture rather than an invoice for what they actually agreed to).

Sadly I'm not shocked after years of tory sleaze and corruption I'd be more surprised if he wasn't on the take.
All the same. We just have to vote for the least worst. Sad really

If anyone is ignorant of the law and unable to express themselves that's you. I notice you can't intelligently provide a coherent reason as to why we shouldn't be disgusted by the corrupt behaviour being demonstrated by Free Gear Keir and his gormless deputy and chancellor.

The only think that surprises me is that anyone is surprised.

As MPs accepting gifts has been going on for decades, why would anyone be surprised?

The only thing that surprises me is why the Tories didn't create all this fuss pre GE.

Did I dream it or did I see a picture of him at the Arsenal match again?

If only we could find a solution to this really tricky issue of accepting gifts? It's obviously really difficult to solve as it's been going on for years 🤔

It's conference season, prime time for shit-stirring. Reform at the NEC last week (pretty sure they could have fitted into a bus stop) and at least a few of their shills in this thread. Incidentally, has anyone mentioned the £98k/month that Sky have reported Farage is being paid by GeeBeebies alongside his MP salary? (or that he's refusing to meet his constituents in Clacton).

And Starmer has the added disadvantage over Johnson et al in that there are elements of his own party joining the pile-on. For all the eternal Tory division, they rarely show the same level hostility to their party leader that elements of the Labour party routinely do.

imho, the real scandal is that football boxes or concert tickets and spectacles etc. cost such insane prices.

I don't mind that Starmer is getting subsidised (free) football tickets, concert tickets, clothes, spectacles, or that his wife got some of those. Also, he got the most (£20k/year) because he was the most important person in much of that period, the heir designate.

MNers are among the most critical if they don't like what a public figure is wearing. The day MNers stop caring a lot about what public figures wear, my opinion of what MNers think about how that clothing got paid for will improve a lot.

They could pay for those freebies like anyone else in a job

That's one big bus stop! 4000 delegates.

I don't think that's the case at all, briefing against leaders was rife and taking one out did go ahead

Although pre GE I did see a lot of posts talking about how undivided Labour would be in comparison, so it's a switch to see this

You very rarely saw public criticism of Johnson's gift receiving spree from within the party. Tory intra-party politics generally focusses on policy rather than personality - or it did until Johnson, and the love-in he got from some MPs (such as Dorries). Then you started to see the personality cult factions forming.

No one in their right mind would expect Labour to be the party of internal unity - it's riven by factions, they're integral to the party make up. Every recent Labour leader has faced greater criticism from within than without. Starmer may not have Corbyn pissing in the tent, but he has a lot of Corbynites still to deal with - and the party is still suffering from the damage Corbyn inflicted.

Not sure why people are so surprised. All politicians are slippery self serving power hungry liars when you scratch beneath the surface.

They are. Every now and then one comes along who you hope might be different (I am not talking about Starmer here) but they are all the same

Thank you pensioners, for understanding. Do try and wrap up warm.

🤢

My money’s on Rayner proving the catalyst with some of her union mates from the far left - for whom she is the archetypal useful idiot.

Starmer was working on the old keep your enemies closer philosophy. That will bite him in is derrière.

Deflection.

Even more excuses coming out

Something to do with Rayner stating she is working class so needs donations

So many images that are a gift to photo editors alongside headlines

No one in their right mind would expect Labour to be the party of internal unity

Interesting. I recall talking about factions pre GE and many pro Labour arguing that would not be the case, and that they would be different to fighting then gov

Obviously not

https://x.com/aaronbastani/status/1837775602905997453?s=46&t=P73CWb5wPJ7_FuwIdMZsTw

another one. Bridget Phillipstone getting £14k from Ali for a 40th birthday party.
If we’d had an actual enquiring media, we’d have known about all of this prior to voting this bunch of moralising hypocrites into power.

It truly is fascinating to see each and every one of these Labour politicians casually dismiss these bribes. She’s literally laughing in this interview.

I am now confident in my hypothesis that anyone who tells me they are a good person, makes a point of saying it, is without fail never a good person.