At long last, it’s finally here. After five days of media trails, Keir Starmer’s equivalent of the Gettysburg Address will be made later today. The scintillating socialist will be doing a press conference in the Downing Street garden, with his address expected to feature such hard-hitting lines as – gasp – he will people ‘at the heart’ of his government and – stop the presses – under Labour it will no longer ‘be business as usual’. Riveting stuff.
But before we are treated to the oratorical prowess of our Dear Leader, there comes the morning round: the much-fabled media ritual in which a hapless frontbencher is savaged by various broadcasters. Today it was the turn of Ellie Reeves against the incisive Kay Burley, keen to find out all about this brave new world of public service and transparency. With the ‘passes for glasses’ row over Waheed Alli now entering its third day, Burley asked why the Labour donor was given access to No. 10:
ER: ‘Um, look as far as I’m aware, he hasn’t got a pass now. Erm, he had -‘
KB: ‘Yeah but he did have one?’
ER: ‘I think he had a pass for, er, a few weeks, um, when -‘
KB: ‘And it was a triple A pass as well. He could go wherever he wanted to.’
ER: ‘Well, I don’t know about that, Kay, erm, but I understand, err, that it was for, err a period of a few weeks when we first got into government. You know, Lord Alli is a well respected, er, Labour, er, peer, urm, and-‘
KB: ‘He shouldn’t have access to Downing Street though?’
ER: ‘Well, as far as I’m aware, he wasn’t involved in any, err, policy, err, decisions, err, in Downing Street. It’s not unusual for, um, a sort of political figure to, umm, have, err, a pass. No, as far as I’m aware, no rules have been broken. And he doesn’t have a pass anymore.’
KB: ‘Nothing to do with the fact that he personally donated quite a lot of money to Keir Starmer’s campaign?’
So much for no more ‘business as usual’ eh? You can watch the full clip below:
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