A flash of a designer label and Sir Keir Starmer’s principles are out of the window - Jayne Dowle
Just what century are we living in? It is loyal of Lammy to try and explain away Lady Starmer’s sartorial requirements, but there will be many female MPs and Labour party members left speechless by this archaic analysis from a senior Cabinet minister.
Can she not buy her own clothes? Or continue the proud Prime Ministerial spousal tradition of borrowing from the best British fashion designers to fly the flag?
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Hide AdWhen they got the keys to Downing Street, much was made of the Starmers’ determination to stay real. Victoria Starmer still works part-time as an occupational therapist in a NHS hospital and has never given a press interview. We still don’t know the names of their two children.


But now we do know that in the interests of not embarrassing her husband, who had already accepted thousands of pounds to spend on suits and spectacles from media mogul Lord Alli, Lady Starmer has also been given £5,000 worth of clothes and personal shopping services.
Unfortunately, with war in Ukraine, Putin and yet more asylum seekers drowning in the English Channel, the PM had somehow forgotten to declare these gifts to his wife within 28 days, as Parliamentary rules stipulate.
What an oversight for the former Director of Public Prosecutions, especially a grave lawyer who insisted that one of his guiding principles in office would be to stamp out cronyism in government. One flash of a designer label and those principles have gone straight out of the window.
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Hide AdWaheed Alli was made a life peer, Baron Alli, of Norbury in the London Borough of Croydon, by former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998. At the age of 34, he became the youngest and the first openly gay peer in Parliament.
His background in television – he was behind Planet 24, the production company which brought us Channel Four’s The Word and The Big Breakfast – made him a go-to man for New Labour when they wanted to get down with the kids. He’s believed to also act as a useful sounding board for his friend Sir Keir, which is fair enough, within reason.
But can this really be the same Sir Keir Starmer who was incandescent when Boris Johnson was reported to have bought expensive wallpaper for Downing Street using donations that hadn’t been properly declared?
Addressing the Commons in April 2021, Starmer referred to the then Prime Minister as “Major Sleaze”, and accused him of being “mired in sleaze, cronyism and scandal”.
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Hide AdIs his memory really that short? This is nothing but blatant hypocrisy, and greedy to boot. We’re talking about a man in receipt of a Prime Ministerial salary of £167,000 a year, plus myriad official allowances, with a lucrative career in the law behind him, who allows another man to pay for his designer spectacles.
And then we learn that Starmer’s generous benefactor - who has led the Labour Party's fundraising efforts and is reported (in The Guardian newspaper) to have donated £500,000 since 2020 as well as giving Starmer personal donations worth more than £50,000 – was awarded an unrestricted pass to Number 10. Another newspaper, The Times, also reported that the peer had held a reception for party donors in the Downing Street garden.
If it hadn’t been for the tenacity of journalists, none of this might have come to light. Why the lack of transparency, we wonder, when the new Labour government made such a massive show of doing things differently, and with clear accountability?
All this discretionary retail therapy is going on whilst Starmer and his Chancellor, Leeds MP Rachel Reeves, are insisting that cancelling the £200-£300 Winter Fuel allowance for all but the poorest of pensioners is the most pragmatic way to start filling in the reputed £20bn black hole in public finances left behind by the Tories.
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Hide AdWe expect leaders to lead by example, not take advantage of their position and have one rule for themselves and another for the rest of us. Dare I say it, especially Labour leaders, and especially one who follows in the footsteps of 14 years of Conservative rule mired in scandal and sleaze.
If this is happening now, just over two months into power, what hope is there for a contract of trust to remain between the Prime Minister and those who voted Labour?
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