Starmer will no longer accept donations for clothes

The Prime Minister and his most senior ministers will no longer accept donations to pay for their clothes.

Neither Sir Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, nor Chancellor Rachel Reeves will accept such donations in the future, the PA news agency understands.

The move comes as Labour seeks to put to bed a row about Sir Keir and his wife Lady Victoria Starmer’s acceptance of gifts, including clothing, from prominent Labour donor and peer Lord Alli.

Sir Keir has accepted around £39,000 from Lord Alli since December 2019.

The Financial Times newspaper has meanwhile reported that donations “in kind” to Ms Rayner and Ms Reeves listed in their registers of interests were also for clothing.

Ms Rayner received funding towards clothing from Lord Alli, while a donor called Juliet Rosenfield provided funding for the Chancellor’s wardrobe, the FT said.

The latest in the row over donations comes as the Labour Party heads to Liverpool for its first annual conference since it won the general election in July.

Sir Keir maintains he has followed all the rules on accepting donations.

In recent weeks the Prime Minister, an avid Arsenal fan, has also come under pressure for accepting more than £35,000 of free football tickets over the last Parliament, along with thousands more in free clothes and concert tickets.

Arsenal

Although he is an Arsenal season ticket holder, Sir Keir told the BBC on Thursday that security concerns meant he could no longer watch games from the stands without a large and expensive police presence.

He told the BBC he was “not going to ask the taxpayer to indulge me to be in the stands when I could go and sit somewhere else where the club and the security say it’s safer for me to be”.

Sir Keir’s register of interests shows most of his tickets have been provided by individual football clubs or the Premier League, although investment firm Cain International and Bishop Auckland-based Teescraft Engineering paid for him to attend games against Chelsea and Newcastle respectively.

He is far from the only MP to have received freebies over the past year, with more than 70 current MPs from across the political spectrum listing free tickets to sporting events in their registers of interests.

Tickets have been provided by private donors, corporations, football clubs or sport governing bodies, among others.