PA averageSir Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves will not accept any further items of clothing after a row over gifts, a Downing Street source said Donate.
The prime minister has faced growing criticism after Labor peer Waheed Alli bought him work clothes and glasses and made a donation of more than £16,000 for his wife.
this The Financial Times reported Rayner and Reeves announced wealthy donors had provided thousands of pounds of workwear for general office support.
The Prime Minister insists he has always adhered to donation rules.
Explaining the decision to stop accepting clothing donations, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told BBC Breakfast: “People in this country are really struggling and we don’t want people to believe that we lead very different lives to them.”
She said it was important to show that the government’s priorities were the same as those of the country and that most people in politics were “ordinary people who want to make people’s lives better”.
Labor is trying to draw a line under the controversy as it heads to Liverpool for its first annual conference since its landslide victory in July’s general election.
Rayner will open the event on Sunday and in comments ahead of her speech she spoke of “restoring trust in politics” and vowed to make “irreversible” changes to devolution laws to ensure northerners are no longer subjected to Whitehall’s “domination”.
The relationship between the Labor leadership and Lord Ali, a wealthy donor who serves as the party’s fundraising chief, has come under fresh scrutiny since it was revealed earlier this week. Sir Keir fails to announce Donated £5,000 to purchase clothing for his wife, Dame Victoria Starmer.
The Conservatives asked Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg to investigate why gifts to personal shoppers and changes of clothing were not declared in the register of MPs, but no investigation was launched.
Sir Keir was one of seven cabinet ministers to receive donations and gifts from Lord Ali ahead of the election.
On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Lord Ali donated £3,550 to Rayner, registered “in support of me in my capacity as deputy leader of the Labor Party”, to buy clothing.
In addition, the newspaper also claimed that Reeves received 7,500 pounds from donor Juliet Rosenfeld in four installments from January 2023 to May 2024, which was allegedly used to pay Clothing expenses.
Former Labor deputy leader Baroness Harman told BBC Newsnight on Thursday that the Prime Minister’s spending on clothes and glasses “feels a bit like a mistake because most people have to buy their own clothes to go to work and the Prime Minister’s salary is not Low” “.
“Looks bad”
The Conservatives called Labor “pure hypocrites”.
A Tory spokesman said: “Keir Starmer and his senior team accepted thousands of pounds of free clothing while keeping 10 million pensioners through a cold and difficult winter.
“Not only are they giving out tons of freebies while preaching to the public about integrity, ethics and hard choices, but they appear to have consistently failed to properly register these crony gifts.”
Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “One would have thought that Keir Starmer might be asking one of our own study [Conservatives] Mistakes we make while serving in government.
“Just following the rules doesn’t protect your reputation,” he said.
“The rules are the backbone – what matters is how you behave, how others view your behavior, how you lead in public life, how you demonstrate your integrity and your commitment to your role.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said the row was a “political mess” for Sir Keir as he tried to portray himself as “different from entitled Tories” and “holier than thou” ”.
“For people who say everything is going to change, this looks very bad,” he added.
SNP work and pensions spokesperson Kirsty Blackman said: “Voters were promised change, but Labor is emulating the worst excesses of the Tories in terms of squalor, austerity and nepotism. .
“safer”
It’s unclear whether the new policy of not accepting clothing donations applies to the prime minister’s wife. Lord Ali paid for the clothes for her and a personal shopper. It’s unclear whether it will apply to other in-kind donations.
The Prime Minister, a huge Arsenal fan, also came under pressure for accepting thousands of pounds worth of free football tickets at the last parliament.
Despite being an Arsenal season ticket holder, Sir Keir told the BBC on Thursday that he could no longer watch games in the stands without security due to security concerns.
In a series of interviews with the BBC, he said “he’s not going to ask taxpayers to let me sit in the stands when I can go and sit in clubs and other places where security thinks it’s safer for me”.
Sir Keir’s register of interest shows the majority of his tickets have been offered by individual football clubs or the Premier League, although investment firm Kane International and Auckland-based Teescraft Engineering have paid for him against Chelsea and Newcastle respectively. competition fees.
He is not the only MP to receive freebies in the past year, with more than 70 sitting MPs from the House of Commons listing free tickets to sporting events on their register of interest.
Tickets are provided by private donors, businesses, football clubs and sports governing bodies, among others.
