Keir Starmer’s clothes row leaves Labor insiders frustrated, writes Laura Kuenssberg

“How shameless!” “Ridiculous.” “They don’t have any clues!”

These are not the descriptions of the Prime Minister’s behavior that Labor wants to hear on any given week, especially as thousands of MPs and MPs pack their bags for a general election. Party meeting in Liverpool.

For the first time in 15 years, senior figures will speak as government ministers rather than opposition politicians, and with them come powers, responsibilities and scrutiny.

Reviews over the past 7 days have brought A series of uncomfortable stories and headlinesfrom donations to clothing, salaries to power struggles.

The Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s wife, the Deputy Prime Minister and even – as we learned last night – the Chancellor of the Exchequer have all accepted free clothing worth thousands of pounds. Sir Keir Starmer has been forced to defend his use of a free company box to watch his beloved Arsenal.

For days, the public’s defense was that it was “all within the rules” – but what is allowed and what is publicly recognized are not the same thing.

A disappointed party source told me it was “shocking” that less than three months after a shock election victory “they (No. 10) have allowed this to become the story”.

On Friday night, “No. 10” adjusted its position, saying that the Prime Minister, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister No more accepting free clothes. This in itself is a tacit admission that they have made a mistake.

Ministers have publicly described the fuss over gowns and football tickets as a “distraction” – a word politicians like to use when describing something they know is embarrassing and difficult to explain.

But this time, the public is definitely taking notice.

Following days of headlines and news reports about donations to the Starmers and other Labor politicians, the research group, More in Common, shared some of the findings from three focus groups conducted on Thursday. Almost everyone present knew what was going on. Researchers said reactions included “disappointment, frustration, anger.”

Two of these groups were Labor-backed voters at this year’s election, winning seats in Rochdale and Birmingham respectively. The third group is made up of people who voted Labor in 2019 but chose someone else or did not vote in July.

It is very clear that although Labour’s top team did not break any rulesmany members of the public have a very pessimistic view of what happened. Some question why politicians choose to accept gifts in the first place and say it is now harder to believe the government is on their side.

As Ayyaz, a Labor voter in Rochdale, told the focus group: “Starmer has received gifts of £100,000 or something like that. So these big politicians, they have no clue. They are paid £180,000 or whatever. They don’t know what the average man or woman lives on.

Sarah, another loyal Labor voter, said: “His wife has been buying new clothes and I don’t know what he got out of it, maybe a suit and a tie but they obviously got a lot of gifts – and whatever , his income is about 200 pounds. So the question is, why does he want to receive gifts?

In fact, Starmer’s salary is around £167,000, while other members of the cabinet are paid less.

In Manchester, Gregg objected to the way Downing Street defended the decisions, telling a focus group it was “the most ridiculous bit because he’s clearly loaded”.

Teacher Claire said: “I was angry because as a teacher I had to declare a box of chocolates given to me by a student I had been working with for a whole year. I had the most boring training ever given to bribery, which was a box of chocolates at best. Chocolates or a bouquet of flowers so to him it was absolutely outrageous.

It’s not scientific, and some of the people asked did dismiss the stories, questioning whether it really mattered. Jack from Birmingham thought “this is not a story”.

“I think 90 per cent of people who get benefits at work, who are constantly in the public spotlight – they really need a good wardrobe,” Rebecca told the meeting.

Voters in focus groups also noted that the opposition Labor Party spent a significant amount of time attacking the Conservatives for money and gifts they had accepted, e.g. Boris Johnson revamps Downing Street apartment Costing over £100,000.

“I do think they [being] A bit hypocritical, they never shut up about Boris’s wallpaper, isn’t it? We never heard the ending of Boris Wallpaper.

Take a breath.

Some ministers and sources I spoke to were furious about whether the response was excessive.

One Starmer ally, a long-time Westminster observer, described his team as “genuine and generous” – “without question”.

“They are as far away from the Johnsonian psychology of a ten-year-old as you can get.”

Another source even revealed that the Prime Minister has repeatedly reminded the Cabinet of how important it is to adhere to the Ministerial Code, the rules governing the conduct of ministers.

As we mentioned, there’s no indication that there’s any violation of the Free Clothes Gate rules. But one senior source said the effect of Starmer’s stick-to-the-rules mantra was that his frontbenchers thought they were squeaky clean – “doing God’s work”. So some of them were very surprised to be attacked this week.

Just a reminder, in politics, just because you’re allowed to do something doesn’t mean you should.

One more thing — politics is an expensive business. The status quo for some time has been Donors or powerful unions pay for some of these costs – Such as funding a politician’s research team or travel expenses. For politicians themselves, it might even be wearing a strange new outfit to state events. But it doesn’t feel the same as free tickets to a sports game, show, or vacation stay.

While some voters were surprised to learn that such private donations are commonplace in politics, taxpayers are not footing the bill.

One party source believes it would be a mistake to accept “lavish gifts” that have nothing to do with current work. They said: “This is disgusting” and called on the Prime Minister to “make a strong statement” in the coming days and say this will all stop.

Perception is crucial. At a time when so much of the public is still struggling with the cost of living (which Labor is well aware of), the story of the freebie is disturbing, especially given that the most controversial decision No. 10 has made to date is Remove winter fuel subsidy for most pensioners.

Pictures of Starmer grinning at a Taylor Swift concert or competing with his wife last weekend are disturbingly consistent with the government’s deliberate message of doom.

If we go back to the focus group, Rebecca said: “Is it true that the money we’re getting from pensioners is lower than it was? Isn’t it? So sentimental?

“I’d rather he pay 1% more tax or whatever than see my parents not being able to pay [on] heat. It just felt so wrong.

Downing Street is prepared to be hated because they think they have to make a decision. Starmer even told us he had to be unpopular A few weeks ago.

But there is nervousness within the Labor Party over what many see as an unforced error.

One insider told me, “The missteps were shocking and it added to the feeling that we were naive.” “They have lost control,” another senior source said.

Inside No 10 we hope that what happened on the Liverpool stage will sweep away the story of the past seven days.

The past few days will serve as a reminder to the party that no matter how strong its majority in parliament is, it cannot dictate what people think. Although Labor’s slogan at the conference was “Change Begins”, there was a sneaking feeling among some voters that Labor might find itself in the same situation.

Ironically, Downing Street’s infighting and embarrassing donations are likely to increase public cynicism about politics, attitudes that Labor has publicly vowed to end.

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