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.
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This is quite amusing. Absolutely a poor look but all declared before PM. Yet the right wing usual suspect press are losing their lunch driving this when they ignored Johnson and ran interference for him. His flat redecoration that had some unusual funding apparently runs more than the whole amount tarmer had, how is Brownlow anyway?
But I would rather the rules are changed. In my old job, no gifts of any value or kind or the tin tac. Same for politicians.
Aren’t most of these people millionaires? Why can they not buy their own clothes?
You get first pick in Oxfam when you are PM and FM…
Ah Oxfam, thanks for that. I was beginning to worry where to send my old gear now that Starmer stopped accepting clothing gifts. Probably the wrong sizes anyway.
He says he will not accept any more “donations” for clothes. I should bloody well think so!!! £100,000 of clothes should last him and his wife a lifetime and more!! These people do not know anything about how the rest of us survive. Being a politician these days is a ticket to untold riches. I wonder what was given in return for the £100k donation?