Keir Starmer accepted £76,000 of freebies

[nearlylovemyusername]

Keir Starmer accepted £76,000 of freebies including tickets to over 20 football games (ft.com)

Sir Keir Starmer accepted £76,000 worth of entertainment, clothes and similar freebies from UK donors since the 2019 general election, more than almost any other MP, according to research by the Financial Times.

Would you be saying this if it was a Tory claiming £76K for clothing? Thought not.
It's not as bad as the Tories isn't really a justification though, is it?

While you're busy answering yourself I would like to point out that KS actually didn't do anything illegal or wrong because he did declare the gifts. We might all agree that accepting £76k worth of anything as a gift isn't good, but it's not wrong so long as it is declared.

The difference with many of the Tory gifts (apart from the order of magnitude for a start) is that so many weren't declared, they were kept quiet until they were found out.

The reason the gifts came to light was because they were not declared.
Now Labour supporters will jump in and say they were delayed because Saint Keir was working out how to declare them. This would not be acceptable is Starmer was eg Sunak, so it's no more acceptable because Starmer is a Labour politician.
The argument thar Labour is not taking as much as the Tories is irrelevant and nonsensical.
Surely all those who were celebrating so loudly in July expected more than this?

There wasn’t much loud celebration. It was the most muted election victory I can ever remember. More twisting of facts - everything was declared in time except the £5k donation for Lady Starmer’s frocks. The fact is that all those donations could have been undeclared and nobody would be any the wiser. I expected better political judgement and understanding of the optics. I have no issue with the principle of the donations.

The argument thar Labour is not taking as much as the Tories is irrelevant and nonsensical.
Only if you are a Tory.
For me, every time I hear about Starmers £2500 glasses, I recall Frank Hester donating £15 MILLION to the Tories, including after he'd been shown to be a racist misogynist.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/06/frank-hester-donated-further-5m-to-tories-in-january-figures-show

Or Sunaks helicopters, e.g:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-took-10k-helicopter-32314211.amp

Makes it extremely hard for me to take the right wing outrage seriously.

I hope Labour have learnt from this and put stronger rules in place.

To be fair Cassie, they were flat broke because most of their donors had deserted them. I guess they had no alternative to accepting a misogynist racist’s money.

For the record, I am not a Tory, but I can't stand hypocrisy, really can't, from any party or anyone for that matter.
I am enjoying seeing the justifications for Labour politicians' behaviour though.

There was seriously nothing muted about some of the threads on here the day after the election.

No me neither. Which is why the behaviour of the media over this while largely turning a blind eye to the excesses of the last government is infuriating.

Oh a donation that size would be justified by some on here, as long as it was to Labour.
Probabloy some guff about they had no choice because the state the country was left blah blah bllah

But why would they revisit the last Government now? Labour are in charge so the scrutiny falls on them now.
As I said upthread, it's the breathtaking hypocrisy I take issue with. I am not especially bothered that Starmer took clothes or spec to be honest, or that Boris took wallpaper.
But the bare-faced cheek of Angela Rayner demanding an enquiry into Boris's flat upgrade then justifying Starmer doing essentially the same thing is my issue.

Kemi Badenoch (potential LOTO) has declared a lot of freebies including Ed Sheeran tickets and said she will continue as "it's a way to spend time with her children while working". Yet still condemns Labour.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/kemi-badenoch-defends-mps-taking-freebies-as-way-to-spend-time-with-family-13220838

It's rank hypocrisy.

Same with Cleverly

https://x.com/maitlis/status/1841124913286934879

“ I will accept gifts from time to time - the problem is not the gifts. It’s the stench of hypocrisy .. “

We waited 14 years, what did you expect? It was very much tempered by the knowledge it was a poison chalice.

@CassieMaddox @DuncinToffee Are you actually serious?
Are you seriously saying that KB is worthy of mention for hypocrisy in the midst of the rank hypocrisy going on at the moment?
Edit: Of course, you are going for the old 'They are not as bad as the Tories' fallback.

Truth hurts, doesn’t it?

Sorry but I don't think so, not on here. Some - you included - were tempered and sensible about it, but I well remember many, many threads about the grown-ups being in charge, a new dawn, the end of sleaze, how moral Keir was etc etc. I mean, I can understand why people would be celebrating, but to say it was muted is not entirely correct.
I can't forget one poster posting endless pics from a conference KS attended straight after his victory, when she seemed to be under the impression that the entire world was worshiping at his feet and captioned each pic accordingly. Was hilarious.

Are you seriously saying that it is only Labour MP's who are hypocrits?

Sorry, what do you mean?

No I am not. But what I am saying is that Labour politicians set themselves up to be better than the Tories and were very, very vocal about 'Tory sleaze' when in opposition.
I can't see how anyone who voted Labour can be anything other than disappointed they are turning out to be the same, no matter how hard they try to justify it.

They are all the same....

That could change now

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czj9m379jg7o

Yes. Her article is her justifying the doing the precise same behaviour herself that she is criticising Starmer for. That is hypocrisy, no?

Or does hypocrisy only make you angry in certain contexts?

This is such a non story. The story appears to be that a politician has done something that is legal and that many other politicians have been doing for years.

Maybe accepting and declaring gifts shouldn't be legal. But it is. So that's that story over. I have no idea why doing something legal is hypocritical.

And as for the Sue Gray nonsense, Simon Case earned more than Boris Johnson. Cabinet secretaries do earn more than the PM. Boris Johnson was getting paid £250 k or something to write a column in the Telegraph. Didn't see that making headlines on the Mail or BBC.

It's like all those threads about Victoria Starmer at the NATO summit, as if no other wife or partner of a PM had ever been to a world leaders' meeting before and she was somehow uniquely grasping at freebies.

Hands up everyone who would want to be a plus one at a NATO summit. No, me neither.

Yep. Jacob Rees Mogg pulling in a thousand pounds a week from GBnews. Nothing to see here though.