If there’s something bad and you’re in a jam, who you gonna call? David Lammy! That’s right, the flailing Foreign Secretary has been out this morning doing his damnedest to defend the indefensible. The Talleyrand of Tottenham had something of a sticky wicket, following the Sunday Times revelations about gifts for Keir Starmer’s wife. And it seems poor old Lammy only made things worse in an interview with Trevor Phillips on Sky as he spun with all the skill of a man who once claimed Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII.
Phillips put it to Lammy that it ‘feels a bit odd’ for the Prime Minister to allow a wealthy peer to purchase his wife’s clothes. The Tottenham MP acknowledged this but suggested that Starmer had to accept the donation as the long-suffering taxpayer does not stump up for a clothing budget:
I recognise that but I also recognise that in our country there isn’t a budget for the Prime Minister’s clothes or his wife’s clothes. In some countries, there’s a substantial budget, I’ve just come back from America where there is a substantial budget to ensure that the US President and the First Lady, their appearance, can never be challenged. That is not the case in our country. So it is the case that successive Leaders of the Opposition wanting to represent the country on an international stage and Prime Ministers have used donors to fund that budget. That is the truth of it.
Er, is it really? For as others have been quick to point out, outfits worn by the First Lady of the United States are not paid for with taxpayer dollars. As CNN has previously explained: ‘First ladies are expected to dress well, but the job doesn’t come with a clothing allowance or a salary.’ All this from a Foreign Secretary who intones gravely about the rise of ‘misinformation’ on social media. And Mr S is old enough to remember 2019 when Labour demanded that Glasgow’s Lord Provost resign for actually spending her allocated clothing budget. What’s changed now eh?
Talk about the grift of the gab.
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