The Prime Minister has been generating scores of headlines lately – for all the wrong reasons. It has transpired this week that Sir Keir has accepted over £107,000 worth of gifts since 2019 – the most of any parliamentarian in the same period. Labour has insisted today that voters don’t care about all this carry on – but after the national outrage that followed the Partygate scandal, Mr S is pretty sceptical of that point. So what makes up Starmer’s most luxurious donations? Steerpike has compiled a handy list below…
Footie freebies
The PM hasn’t made a secret of his obsession with the beautiful game, and it didn’t take long for his donors to cotton on to his favourite pastime either. Apparently the only way he can see his beloved Arsenal play, Starmer has regularly opted for a more pampered experience at the pitch. In all, the Labour leader has accepted £40,000 in footie treats – including five hospitality tickets worth £3,000 for Arsenal v Porto in March this year. As revealed by ITV, the lefty politician has more recently been given use of a corporate box by Arsenal – a perk advertised as costing at least £8,750. He took two tickets with hospitality for West Ham v Arsenal in April last year, worth around £700, from Mullalley & Co. – a construction company fined £10.8 million in 2022 for defective cladding. Not the best look in the post-Grenfell era…
Swift on tour
Perhaps it’s fitting that the Starmers have accepted multiple invitations to Taylor Swift’s world tour, given the electoral success achieved by Labour’s latest ‘era’. It was hardly a Cruel Summer for Sir Keir, who accepted £4,000 worth of Taylor Swift tickets himself while his wife also accepted two free tickets to see the US singer-songwriter. According to Westminster lore, the PM’s favourite Taylor song is ‘Change’ – although Steerpike rather suspects he may in future opt for ‘Don’t Blame Me’. The secret Swiftie attended the packed out gig in June, perhaps to, er, ‘shake off’ the pre-election nerves, while Lady Starmer went to two Taylor gigs for free, it turns out. Talk about ‘champagne problems’, eh?
Of course it’s not just Taylor’s music Starmer chills out to. The PM also took up the offer of four tickets to see Coldplay at Manhester’s Etihad Stadium last summer, coming in at a cost of £700. Alright for some, eh?
The Starmers don’t slum it
The PM’s most generous donor is one Lord Alli, who has given him almost £40,000 since Starmer became the Labour leader – including over £20,000 towards accommodation costs. It transpires that Sir Keir used all 5,000 square feet of Alli’s luxury penthouse on election night, as well as for various strategy meetings and fundraisers. No one can accuse him of not working in style…
Frockgate
And on the subject of Lord Alli, it would be remiss not to delve back into Starmer’s clothing saga. It was thought on Sunday that the PM could face an ethics probe over undeclared presents for his wife, after the Sunday Times revealed that £5,000 worth of clothes donated by the rich Labour donor to Starmer’s other half had not been declared in line with parliamentary guidance. The millionaire businessman covered the cost of Lady Starmer’s personal shopper, as well as a variety of garments – bought just before the election to the present day. For his part, Sir Keir received workwear worth more than £16,000 and over £2,000 worth of glasses for the bespectacled PM.
A good gamble
Football may be the closest sport to the Prime Minister’s heart, but it appears the PM isn’t adverse to attending a little horse-racing either. Last summer, Sir Keir accepted the offer of a private box for four people at Epsom Downs Racecourse, worth more than £3,700. According to Steerpike’s research, the experience includes a champagne reception, a four-course meal, a free bar and a private balcony overlooking the course. Crikey. He’s not doing things by halves…
And the Labour lot have been mired in more scandal, after revelations emerged that the party’s largest donation of £4 million came from Cayman Island-registered hedge fund Quadrature Capital – with millions of pounds of shares in fossil fuels, private heath organisations and arms manufacturers. Golly. In Tony Blair’s memoirs, the former Labour leader admitted he regretted going after John Major’s government over sleaze scandals and professional standards, confessing: ‘The goals were easy, but the long-term consequences were disastrous’. Mr S imagines Starmer may be feeling rather similarly now…
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