UK PM Starmer in 'hypocrisy' row over gifts and hospitality

LONDON (AFP) — Britain’s Keir Starmer on Thursday faced mounting questions after analysis showed he has received more than 100,000 pounds ($132,000) in gifts and hospitality since December 2019 — more than any other lawmaker.

The revelations, even though the gifts have been declared and do not breach parliamentary rules, come at a time when his government is pushing Britons to accept short-term financial “pain for long-term good.”

Most controversially, Labour is planning to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners which will leave some 300 pounds (nearly $400) worse off.

But widespread opposition to the move, including from within his own party, has been compounded by questions about gifts both he and his wife, Victoria, have received.

First came an admission from Starmer that Victoria, who recently attended a London Fashion Week show, accepted clothes worth 5,000 pounds from Labour donor Waheed Alli, a media entrepreneur and member of the House of Lords.

Alli has also donated tens of thousands of pounds worth of clothing, accommodation and “multiple pairs” of spectacles to the prime minister himself.

Media have dubbed the row “passes for glasses” after it was disclosed that Alli had a temporary Downing Street security pass despite not having a government role.

Also this week, it emerged that Starmer’s powerful chief of staff Sue Gray, who as a senior civil servant led an inquiry into Covid lockdown-breaking parties by the Tories at Downing Street, now earns 170,000 pounds a year.

Starmer, who became Labour leader in early 2020, earns about 167,000 pounds.

Soccer

The drip-drip of details about gifts and high pay has fueled accusations of hypocrisy from the opposition Conservative party at a time when the government is asking ordinary people to tighten their belts.

Since December 2019, Starmer has received 107,145 pounds in gifts, benefits, and hospitality, according to an analysis of declared gifts by broadcaster Sky News and the Tortoise Media news website.

Included among 40,000 pounds worth of hospitality were Taylor Swift tickets worth 4,000 pounds and Premier League soccer tickets worth 12,000 pounds .

Starmer, a keen Arsenal fan, defended accepting the gifts this week, saying he could not go to soccer matches and watch from the stands for security reasons.

According to ITV News, Starmer has been given the use of a corporate box by Arsenal, which would normally cost 8,750 pounds per game.

“If I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game,” Starmer told reporters. “You could say, ‘well, bad luck’ … . But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”

Starmer has admitted the winter fuel payment cut is “unpopular” but insists “tough choices” are necessary to help close a 22 billion pound ($29 billion) “black hole” in the public finances that Labour claims they inherited from the Conservatives.

Last month he also warned that the government’s Budget in late October — Labour’s first since it was last in power 14 years ago — would be “painful.”

The freebies have generated a string of negative headlines less than three months after Labour was elected with a thumping majority and on a promise to rebuild trust in politicians and public service.

The party’s annual conference opens on Sunday.

“King of the Cadgers,” read the Daily Star tabloid’s front page headline on Thursday, using the British slang term for ‘freeloaders,’ while even the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror was critical.

On Wednesday it wrote that while nearly “2million Brits can’t afford to turn on the heating this winter and pensioners are being forced to go without, Keir Starmer keeps getting the government further into a political hole.”

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By HELEN ROWE Agence France-Presse