Sir Keir Starmer - "King of the Cadgers!.

 

Sir Keir Starmer

The Labour peer, Lord Waheed Alli, has been in the newspapers quite a lot in the past few weeks because of his financial donations to the Labour Party and to Keir and Victoria Starmer.

Lord Alli, who is estimated to be worth around £200m, is said to have donated tens of thousands of pounds' worth of suits and spectacles to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and £5,000 worth of clothes and personal shopping, for his wife Lady Victoria Starmer. The Prime Minister has also declared £20,400 for "accommodation" from Lord Alli who owns an £18 million penthouse in Covent Garden and a property in Kent. These properties and office space in London, owned by Lord Alli, have also been used to host meetings of Sir Keirs team.

On the night of the general election on July 4, Sir Keir chose to be at Lord Alli's Covent Garden penthouse with family members and close aides to watch the exit polls announcement where a buffet was made available.

A recent analysis has revealed that Sir Keir has declared more free tickets and gifts than any other major party leader in recent times, amounting to more than £100,000 since December 2019. The Labour MP Lucy Powell, has declared gifts of £40,289.00 since 2019. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, is also known to have benefitted from fashion donations. Declarations show that she accepted £2,200-worth of free clothing from the brand ME-EM.

The Conservative opposition who are no strangers to sleaze and cronyism, have questioned Sir Keir's approach to accepting gifts and largesse from wealthy individuals and businesses. Tom Tugendhat who wants to replace Rishi Sunak as the Conservative Party leader, told the journalist Sophy Ridge, that MPs are offered a lot of gifts and free tickets, but "a lot of us decline politely." He added:

"I've been invited to many different events...And you know, you've got to make a decision. Does it look right? Does it smell right? Pass the sniff test, frankly...The question is why are people offering him (Keir Starmer), so many freebies."

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested that he will continue to accepts gifts from Lord Alli. On Monday, Starmer said in Rome, that it would be "pushing it a bit far" for him to banned from receiving hospitality gifts.