I am a Labour voter, a Labour supporter and I do not regret my vote.

[CurlewKate]

However, I think that Starmer has been incredibly stupid and/or very badly advised over this expenses issue. He has done nothing wrong, but his behaviour is not what he led us to believe he would do, and I am incredibly exasperated and disappointed.

In my opinion, he should admit that he made a massive misjudgement, and agree to take no more freebies from now on.

Apart from anything else anything which allows people to say "They are all as bad as each other" (they aren't) is a distraction from the real issues the country faces. He should be laser focussed on repairing the damage caused by 14 years of Tory misrule. Not scrambling around dealing with peripheral stuff.
Starmer-say sorry. Don't do it again. And get back to work.

@Nordione1 "I don't know what you mean by "unsavoury" though? What are you suggesting?"

It's you "suggesting" something. You said "What sort of a man encourages another man to buy his own wife's clothes?"

What sort of a man did you mean?

@Clavinova - a bit of evidence would be good. Not sure why you'd bother scrabbling around for it though. All sounds a bit desperate.

Not sure I said that? I think you are confusing me with someone else. Have a look at the past posts. And you used the word "unsavoury" not me. I don't know what you are suggesting but I think you are getting s bit close to the line perhaps.

And in any event I'd suggest that trying to take the moral high ground and disapprove of other people's actions hasn't worked out that well for Labour in rather recent memory.

Anyway the point is, we don't know why Lord Alli bought the clothes or gave all that money. That's the whole reason why taking cash is inadvisable in Keir's position. Your man messed up. Just take the point on the chin and move on rather than trying to make a point about..well, I have no idea what your point is. You started this thread indicating you disapproved of Keir and yet...

@Nordione1 "Your man messed up."
As I have repeatedly said.....

@Nordione1 I apologise unreservedly-I got you confused with another poster.

No problem

All sounds a bit desperate

Not as desperate as Lucy Powell a few minutes ago on LBC, claiming that Labour have been 'totally transparent'. Andrew Neil was mentioned on air - I see he has the measure of Labour's 'transparency';

This we only learned last night: Chancellor Rachel Reeves accepted £7,500 in donations for clothing but it was registered vaguely as “support” for her office. So much for the promised transparency Deputy PM Angela Rayner accepted clothes worth £3,550 declared confusingly as a “donation in kind for undertaking parliamentary duties”. So much for transparency In addition to that £3,550 “donation in kind”, Rayner also received £8,500 last October, £8,250 in March and £900 in April from Labour moneybags Lord Alli, declared as money to “support” her in her “capacity as deputy leader of the Labour Party”.

Those cabinet members mentioned should now resign. Discuss.

Ironically, not many people are responsible for this. The turn out was just under 60% so only 20% of the electorate voted Labour. That's only 1 in 5 people registered to vote.

The low percentage of votes was frequently mentioned on Brexit threads but Labour supporters on here have been strangely silent re the recent election.

..but you cannot disagree with what i said because you know its true, so try but fail to phase us with you Aussie "witt"

Alli was supposed to be arranging events in no10, so given a pass, once the events ended, pass withdrawn.

Whats wrong with that?

On the wider point of gifts, absolutely, politicians need to be seen to be above corruption.

We should move to no gifts, no donations, no special access for lobby groups and political parties funded via the tax payer.

How well will that go down?

'Us' how many are there of you? And didn't you mean wit? That did make me laugh, at least insult with good spelling.

You are only half remembering personal details btw maybe try to get it right if you think you 'know' someone on mn like that.

I don't counter tbh because your posts are often muddled

Try to keep the personal attacks out of it please, we don't want MN having to step in.... again.

Witt? no mistake, that just went over your head.

No, the facts are you lot had 14 years to sort out the UK and slash pensioner poverty, which you know seem soooo concerned about but during those 14years, poverty went up and up and up.

As did energy prices, due to the Tories failing to reform energy pricing, can't blame Russia now, market pricing is lower than ever but not for the consumer.

What was your swipe at Aussie 'witt' if not personal?

You are not getting my nationality right in any case.

He was given a pass for unfettered access after making significant cash and non-cash donations, despite having no formal government role. It is highly unusual for anyone to be given a pass unless they are staff. He also attended political meetings at Number 10 and had involvement in the appointment of Cabinet positions. Probably regretting a few of those now.

I think it's called "cronyism" and Labour are very against that sort of thing if the Conservatives do it.

A couple of interesting substantial pre-election donations made to David Lammy and Shabana Mahmood being reported now.

Now of this - or the clothes or the Swifty tickets or the Arsenal tickets etc etc - is against any rules. But it looks absolutely fucking awful for a Labour Party that couldn’t stop alleging sleaze and grift against its opponents.

The crony appointments issue rumbles on.

After two-and-a-half months!

This is a pisspoor, compromised government.

Totally agree, no-one should making these gifts, it does smack of cronyism.

Like i say, the alternative to all of this is Tax payer funded only.

Donations from either unions, business or individuals, opens any party up to the accusation of cronyism.

Why can't politicians just pay for stuff like we all do anyway?

It doesn't need to be the tax payer, as in pp

The problem is, after the expenses scandal I'm assuming MPs were trying to find alternative ways of getting stuff that wasn't from the taxpayer, hence presumably the reliance on private donors. Which has not worked well as MPs have not been honourable enough to turn down all the lovely treats offered.

MPs just need to ask what they can do for their country rather than what their country (and its taxpayers) can do for them. Then they will be OK.

I think this crop are compromised now and probably should resign. They won't be able to carry the country with them when they reduce the WFA and raise taxes while everyone else is thinking about specs and holidays to New York.

If Keir keeps going to the hospitality football or they do trips the media will be all over it. And if they don't he'll still have the free stuff already taken

And they'll juxtapose against pensioners losing WFA this winter

If parties are funded by individuals and organisations, they still leave themselves open to accusations of corruption.

So we've pp very concerned Labour got £4m just before the GE but the same posters not bothered in the slightest when £20m given to the Tories from Hestor.

Both donations kept secret as long as possible to avoid accusations.

I'm sorry but if you re genuinely worried about cloths etc then why aren't you worried about party political donations and how they can affect Govt actions?

See this is what i don't get, i ve been on here a long time, no Tory supporting poster has ever called for their Govt of choice to resign over Bojo/Truss/parties/gifts/huge donations or an £8m Helicopter but the moment Labour stick their heads in the trough its all "Resign/Greedy bastards/lost our trust etc etc" & Sunak was a man of people bollox, with his expenses funded helicopter and heated swimming pool...

I absolutely agree that the whole expenses issue is outrageous and should not have happened, and I am not engaging in whataboutery. I do just wonder, however, why nobody on the right seemed to object particularly to Johnson's financial shenanigans. Including the tasteless wallpaper. I repeat, this is NOT an attempt to excuse Starmer.

Yes some consistency would be nice.

Its the personal donations I object to. Of things unrelated to work eg New Year in New York, £2,500 on specs. And how hard it is to work out what the donor got in return particularly if they dont declare it properly. Boris had the same issue with the wallpaper/drinks trolley. I think there was uproar on that too. Although to be fair, Boris had never lectured people on morals and ethics of receiving personal donations. And Keir had said "the rules are very clear".

It's not tribal this by the way. I think they're all the same. You can bring in the tories but it doesn't change what Labour have done. I think most people realise this though.

Funny. I think the fact that Keir is called a massive hypocrite is due to his comments and moral grandstanding about Boris. And then he does the same himself along with his entire Cabinet. I suppose that is consistency?