Sir Keir Starmer will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes, Sky News understands.
Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner also announced they would take the same approach moving forward.
The decision by the prime minister, chancellor and deputy prime minister follows scrutiny of Sir Keir Starmer and his wife for accepting donations.
The prime minister has accepted work clothing donations worth £16,200, and multiple pairs of glasses, to the value of £2,485.
Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations too, to the value of £2,230.
The chancellor has not accepted any such donations, according to the MPs’ register of interests.
Sky News revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.
But donations for the Arsenal VIP boxes and Taylor Swift concerts and everything else will continue to be accepted, one presumes.
What more could you possibly need after spending £16,200 on clothing, anyway?
Definitely the right move but a lot of damage has been done already. It was a pointless thing for him to dig his heels in over, especially in the current environment and with a seemingly difficult budget coming up.
>multiple pairs of glasses, to the value of £2,485.
What the fuck are the types of glasses he is wearing lol. Do they have diamond lenses or something?
Lmao won’t accept clothes donations after receiving 16k worth already.
Multi millionaire accepting ANY donations is massive red flag for a politician. The man has the worst optics since Bojo and he doesn’t even seem to be trying..
Good, but he needs to go further to restore faith. No personal donations whatsoever. Any cost incurred by the job should be provided by the state. There has to be a clear divide between lawmakers and lobbyists.
Just taking donations of everything else on the planet then.
can someone tell me why a representative of the people, the vast majority of which do not wear expensive clothes, need to have thousand pound suits?
he should be wearing what the common folk wear. he is a member of the house of commons.
WHY IS HE NOT WEARING A BURLAP SACK
I work a middle management job at a small software company. Even I have to do regular training about reporting anything bigger than a branded pen or a lunch meeting, and avoiding even the APPEARANCE of impropriety.
That was wrong then? Everybody’s in the f****** trough
Will he and his Wife still be accepting business attire?
What kind of man has another man buy his wife clothes? Odd
Jesus fucking Christ. So Starmer and the rest of the Cabinet spend an entire week going before the press absolutely embarrassing themselves trying to find a dozen different ways to insist that Starmer and his wife and other Cabinet members are actually totally justified in taking these donations and that if anything they’re doing *us* a favour by taking them… only to end the week by backing down and admitting it was a mistake and saying they won’t take (some) donations any more.
What a fucking comms *disaster*. The entire comms team should be given their P45s. Of course they won’t though. There have been similar, though not quite as massive, comms disasters before but the comms team have kept trundling on like nothing has happened. But this is what happens when you spend a decade getting comparatively cushy treatment by the press and are totally unprepared for when they start turning the screw even the tiniest amount.
He doesn’t need any fucking BRIBARY donations, cunts on over £150,000 a year wages.
But if he can’t accept socks and scarves, and wooly bobblehats sent in by adoring UK pensioners, how on earth will the poor man stay warm this winter?!
The man is on £100k, why would he be accepting gifts. Can’t buy work clothes and glasses with that salary? Shameful PM.
Should take the donation money and give it to struggling families or food banks that support the local community.
> Starmer to no longer accept donations to pay for clothes
He’s doubling down. Minimum gift going forward is a car.
I understand that instead donations will be accepted in the form of complete garments rather than money to pay for garments.
Too late at this juncture his image as Mr Clean is done.
We probably live in a soap opera if Sky and BBC report this as breaking news.
You know at least with BoJo he didn’t care that people knew he was corrupt, Starmer decried Tory corruption and sleaze and not even two months in office he does this???
I’m actually wondering if Labour are trying to piss people off deliberately at this point
Starmer has awful political instincts, and isn’t a very good politician. He’s wasted a lot of political capital this week defending, and having his team defend the indefensible. He was very right, and quick to attack Tories for accepting from donors, let’s be real, bribes.
It’s not even 100 days yet, and he’s gone from scandal to scandal, and already a very “wounded” political animal. He’s making tough decisions for the country, but doing so while very much enjoying the luxury, and privilege of office.
I had some reservations about Starmer, but I largely supported his transformation of the Labour Party into a viable election-winning outfit.
However, this has hugely dented my confidence in him. If Starmer cannot see that accepting expensive gifts as Labour leader, while taking away the winter fuel allowance and maintaining the two-child benefit cap, sends the wrong message, then he is far less perceptive than I had thought and hoped.
Or for now or just those types of physical donations?
The Labour-tory faction are understandably comfortable with soft corruption because Starmer is their guy, but he has the stain on him now and it’s not going away.
Should have been his position from the start.
I’ve got no faith in the press putting pressure on him to drop austerity though. One can dream I guess. At least he has to buy his own trousers.
So was it wrong?
If it wasn’t wrong then did it give the impression of impropriety?
If it gave the impression of impropriety then why did they do it in the first place?
If this was above board then does the public “misunderstanding” the nature of the gifts make them thick?
If the public have been misled by the press and opposition parties then does that make them easily led thickos?
At least his principles of populism first are being stuck to, however, I’m amazed that a civil service employee who should’ve known better, doubled down on this stance beforehand.
It’s just made him look greedy and lacking principles, that are outlined in the Nolan principles, that apply to every civil servant for decades.
This shit is gonna stick.
I’m going to try and be measured on this issue. I don’t like Keir Starmer, his government and much of what he stands for so my opinions inevitably are coloured by those facts. Part of me is enjoying the fall from grace because I think this government so far has been crap.
That said, being PM requires a certain image and maintaining that image is expensive. There is an argument (which I expect would be unpopular) for the PM to have either an allowance or similar for clothes for public affairs and same for his wife. The argument he should dress himself has some merit but he can’t really go to a G7 conference in an M&S suit and stand next to the preening Macron who is probably in something designer without looking like the poor relation (no offence to M&S which I in have in my own wardrobe). £20k per year would hardly pay for Sue Gray for a month so who cares.
Starmer is being hung by his own petard because he was self righteous and hectoring in opposition and set himself up for a fall as a result. His wife accepting concert tickets and the No10 pass for the donor was stupid and easily avoidable. He is clearly a hypocrite and that is never a good look. I do still have some sympathy for the clothes cost issue. Same with the box at the football – I don’t really care. He isn’t your man in the street and he likes the game so fair enough he sits with the Chairman. It does raise a question about the regulator and conflicts of interest.
Overall I think this is a massive self inflicted own goal by a somewhat naive politician who seems to have difficulty in reading the room. The winter fuel payments thing is the same – small saving for a massive political headache. Just wait until Edna freezes to death and the Daily Mail has the family all over the front page just because they set the limit so low.
In short – the government should pay for his suits like the Americans do for their President. Starmer should have seen this coming and let’s face it he’s loaded and leads a left wing party so just should just buy his own stuff. He should tell his wife that if she wants to go to concert to pay for it like everyone else.
It’s exhausting having politicians that don’t seem to have political instincts.
31 comments
Sir Keir Starmer will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes, Sky News understands.
Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner also announced they would take the same approach moving forward.
The decision by the prime minister, chancellor and deputy prime minister follows scrutiny of Sir Keir Starmer and his wife for accepting donations.
The prime minister has accepted work clothing donations worth £16,200, and multiple pairs of glasses, to the value of £2,485.
Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations too, to the value of £2,230.
The chancellor has not accepted any such donations, according to the MPs’ register of interests.
Sky News revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.
But donations for the Arsenal VIP boxes and Taylor Swift concerts and everything else will continue to be accepted, one presumes.
What more could you possibly need after spending £16,200 on clothing, anyway?
Definitely the right move but a lot of damage has been done already. It was a pointless thing for him to dig his heels in over, especially in the current environment and with a seemingly difficult budget coming up.
>multiple pairs of glasses, to the value of £2,485.
What the fuck are the types of glasses he is wearing lol. Do they have diamond lenses or something?
Lmao won’t accept clothes donations after receiving 16k worth already.
Multi millionaire accepting ANY donations is massive red flag for a politician. The man has the worst optics since Bojo and he doesn’t even seem to be trying..
Good, but he needs to go further to restore faith. No personal donations whatsoever. Any cost incurred by the job should be provided by the state. There has to be a clear divide between lawmakers and lobbyists.
Just taking donations of everything else on the planet then.
can someone tell me why a representative of the people, the vast majority of which do not wear expensive clothes, need to have thousand pound suits?
he should be wearing what the common folk wear. he is a member of the house of commons.
WHY IS HE NOT WEARING A BURLAP SACK
I work a middle management job at a small software company. Even I have to do regular training about reporting anything bigger than a branded pen or a lunch meeting, and avoiding even the APPEARANCE of impropriety.
That was wrong then? Everybody’s in the f****** trough
Will he and his Wife still be accepting business attire?
What kind of man has another man buy his wife clothes? Odd
Jesus fucking Christ. So Starmer and the rest of the Cabinet spend an entire week going before the press absolutely embarrassing themselves trying to find a dozen different ways to insist that Starmer and his wife and other Cabinet members are actually totally justified in taking these donations and that if anything they’re doing *us* a favour by taking them… only to end the week by backing down and admitting it was a mistake and saying they won’t take (some) donations any more.
What a fucking comms *disaster*. The entire comms team should be given their P45s. Of course they won’t though. There have been similar, though not quite as massive, comms disasters before but the comms team have kept trundling on like nothing has happened. But this is what happens when you spend a decade getting comparatively cushy treatment by the press and are totally unprepared for when they start turning the screw even the tiniest amount.
He doesn’t need any fucking BRIBARY donations, cunts on over £150,000 a year wages.
But if he can’t accept socks and scarves, and wooly bobblehats sent in by adoring UK pensioners, how on earth will the poor man stay warm this winter?!
The man is on £100k, why would he be accepting gifts. Can’t buy work clothes and glasses with that salary? Shameful PM.
Should take the donation money and give it to struggling families or food banks that support the local community.
> Starmer to no longer accept donations to pay for clothes
He’s doubling down. Minimum gift going forward is a car.
I understand that instead donations will be accepted in the form of complete garments rather than money to pay for garments.
Too late at this juncture his image as Mr Clean is done.
We probably live in a soap opera if Sky and BBC report this as breaking news.
You know at least with BoJo he didn’t care that people knew he was corrupt, Starmer decried Tory corruption and sleaze and not even two months in office he does this???
I’m actually wondering if Labour are trying to piss people off deliberately at this point
Starmer has awful political instincts, and isn’t a very good politician. He’s wasted a lot of political capital this week defending, and having his team defend the indefensible. He was very right, and quick to attack Tories for accepting from donors, let’s be real, bribes.
It’s not even 100 days yet, and he’s gone from scandal to scandal, and already a very “wounded” political animal. He’s making tough decisions for the country, but doing so while very much enjoying the luxury, and privilege of office.
I had some reservations about Starmer, but I largely supported his transformation of the Labour Party into a viable election-winning outfit.
However, this has hugely dented my confidence in him. If Starmer cannot see that accepting expensive gifts as Labour leader, while taking away the winter fuel allowance and maintaining the two-child benefit cap, sends the wrong message, then he is far less perceptive than I had thought and hoped.
Or for now or just those types of physical donations?
The Labour-tory faction are understandably comfortable with soft corruption because Starmer is their guy, but he has the stain on him now and it’s not going away.
Should have been his position from the start.
I’ve got no faith in the press putting pressure on him to drop austerity though. One can dream I guess. At least he has to buy his own trousers.
So was it wrong?
If it wasn’t wrong then did it give the impression of impropriety?
If it gave the impression of impropriety then why did they do it in the first place?
If this was above board then does the public “misunderstanding” the nature of the gifts make them thick?
If the public have been misled by the press and opposition parties then does that make them easily led thickos?
At least his principles of populism first are being stuck to, however, I’m amazed that a civil service employee who should’ve known better, doubled down on this stance beforehand.
It’s just made him look greedy and lacking principles, that are outlined in the Nolan principles, that apply to every civil servant for decades.
This shit is gonna stick.
I’m going to try and be measured on this issue. I don’t like Keir Starmer, his government and much of what he stands for so my opinions inevitably are coloured by those facts. Part of me is enjoying the fall from grace because I think this government so far has been crap.
That said, being PM requires a certain image and maintaining that image is expensive. There is an argument (which I expect would be unpopular) for the PM to have either an allowance or similar for clothes for public affairs and same for his wife. The argument he should dress himself has some merit but he can’t really go to a G7 conference in an M&S suit and stand next to the preening Macron who is probably in something designer without looking like the poor relation (no offence to M&S which I in have in my own wardrobe). £20k per year would hardly pay for Sue Gray for a month so who cares.
Starmer is being hung by his own petard because he was self righteous and hectoring in opposition and set himself up for a fall as a result. His wife accepting concert tickets and the No10 pass for the donor was stupid and easily avoidable. He is clearly a hypocrite and that is never a good look. I do still have some sympathy for the clothes cost issue. Same with the box at the football – I don’t really care. He isn’t your man in the street and he likes the game so fair enough he sits with the Chairman. It does raise a question about the regulator and conflicts of interest.
Overall I think this is a massive self inflicted own goal by a somewhat naive politician who seems to have difficulty in reading the room. The winter fuel payments thing is the same – small saving for a massive political headache. Just wait until Edna freezes to death and the Daily Mail has the family all over the front page just because they set the limit so low.
In short – the government should pay for his suits like the Americans do for their President. Starmer should have seen this coming and let’s face it he’s loaded and leads a left wing party so just should just buy his own stuff. He should tell his wife that if she wants to go to concert to pay for it like everyone else.
It’s exhausting having politicians that don’t seem to have political instincts.