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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
Diane Abbott has accused Keir Starmer of being “in the pocket of millionaires” as senior party insiders fear that Labour is being put on trial over the freebies saga.
The claim by the veteran left-wing Labour MP, who Sir Keir’s allies attempted to block from standing in the recent election, has come amid growing unease over the influence of Waheed Alli and the £107,000 of gifts received by the prime minister since 2019.
The row is threatening to derail what should be a triumphant Labour conference in Liverpool in the wake of the election victory in July.
Already comparisons are being drawn with disgraced former Tory prime minister Boris Johnson. Ministers have privately admitted to The Independent that the comparisons are a concern.
But cabinet minister Ellie Reeves, the party chair, has pleaded in an exclusive interview with The Independent for Sir Keir not to be compared to Mr Johnson.
She said: “You can’t really compare Keir to Boris in terms of the rule breaking and everything else like that.
“Keir has declared the gifts and the donations and it’s important there are systems in place so there is that transparency.”
But after Labour’s attack on the former prime minister asking donors to help wallpaper Downing Street, there are claims that Sir Keir and his top team are being hypocritical.
With free tickets to football matches and Taylor Swift concerts in the portfolio of gifts received by the prime minister as well as designer glasses, a tirade of anger has been directed at Sir Keir with another cabinet minister issuing a warning.
Culture secretary and former leadership candidate Lisa Nandy said: “Labour leaders need to show they do not lead different lives to the public.”
Even Labour Together – the pro-Sir Keir group that got him elected leader – has warned that “Labour is on trial” with voters, as Sir Keir’s ratings have taken a hit in the polls less than three months after winning power.
One issue has been Sir Keir accepting a box for Arsenal’s home matches because he can no longer use his season tickets on the terraces.
Ms Reeves defended the prime minister, saying: “The tickets for Arsenal, for example. If he was to go sit in the stands, I think the cost, in terms of having all of the personal protection officers there was, ends up being far more than him being in this box.”
Some have raised Sir Keir’s decision, along with chancellor Rachel Reeves, to withdraw winter fuel allowance from 10 million pensioners – putting thousands at risk of dying from the cold this winter according to Labour’s own research.
It has also been noted that while Sir Keir has taken an austere approach to people’s private lives in wanting to ban people smoking in beer gardens, he appears to be ready to accept gifts for major events.
Political opponents are circling, with Nigel Farage joking on stage at the Reform UK conference in Birmingham that he had paid for his glasses.
The controversy blew up after it emerged that Lord Alli, a close friend of Sir Keir’s controversial chief of staff, Sue Gray, had paid £5,000 for clothes for his wife Victoria. He also gave £20,000 for accommodation for Sir Keir while he was campaigning.
In total, seven cabinet ministers have benefited from Lord Alli’s generosity and he was handed a temporary security pass to enter Downing Street after the election victory. While the pass is no longer available to him it has been claimed that Lord Alli still attends cabinet meetings even though he is not a minister.
On Lord Alli, Ms Reeves said: “Waheed has been a Labour peer for 20 years. He’s highly respected, both within the party and across parties.
“He did a huge amount of work for the party on fundraising, for example, for the general election. He’s got a long, long history within our party.”
Just before the conference, Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves announced they would no longer take donations for clothes after it emerged the deputy prime minister and chancellor had both taken money for outfits and put them down as “office expenses”.
But the decision does not seem to have ended the concerns over the amount of freebies ministers are receiving, particularly the prime minister.
Sir Keir’s gifts totalled two-and-a-half times more than the next MP, Labour leader of the Commons Lucy Powell.
Baroness Harman, the former deputy Labour leader, has also waded into the row, saying that Sir Keir should stop trying to “justify” accepting gifts as it is “making things worse”.
One issue facing Labour is the charge of hypocrisy after they had accused the Tories of greed when Boris Johnson asked for help from a donor for wallpaper for Downing Street.
The political damage has been underlined in focus groups for the More in Common think tank among Labour voters.
A Labour voter in Rochdale, Ayyaz, told the focus group: “Starmer has been given gifts of £100,000 or something like that. So these big politicians, they don’t have a clue. They are on salaries of £180,000 or whatever it is. They do not have an idea of what the common man or the common woman lives by.”
Another Labour voter, Sarah, said: “His wife has been lapping up the new clothes, I don’t know what he’s got out of it, maybe a suit and a tie, but they have obviously been getting lots of gifts, and he’s on like 200 grand anyway. So the point is, why is he taking gifts?”
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