Clothes maketh the man, they say. In the case of Keir Starmer they seem to have become his undoing. Following a tough week for the Prime Minister, it emerged on Friday that a further £16,000 of designer clobber donated by Labour peer Waheed Alli had been wrongly declared as money for Starmer’s private office.
The revelations came in The Guardian, Labour’s house mag – which perhaps gives a sense of how this story infuriates people on both sides of the political divide.
Friends (mostly women) who voted Labour are furious that the person they thought would be an antidote to Tory sleaze has been caught with his snout in the trough.
They can’t believe how venal Starmer has revealed himself to be, or why he’s allowed this catastrophic own goal. His peevish, dismissive response to the whole debacle hasn’t helped either.
Old Tory mates are torn between incredulity, a told-you-so euphoria and a deep sense of frustration that because of Starmer’s stonking majority, there’s not much anyone can do about any of it.
Following a tough week for the Prime Minister, it emerged on Friday that a further £16,000 of designer clobber donated by Labour peer Waheed Alli had been wrongly declared as money for Keir Starmer’s private office
It’s like some surreal satire on the double standards of socialism. The comparisons with George Orwell’s Animal Farm are unavoidable, down to Chapter VI, when Napoleon and his fellow pigs move into the farmhouse. Or do I mean an £18million penthouse in Covent Garden courtesy of Lord Alli, or – in the case of Angela Rayner – the Labour peer’s £2million apartment in New York?
Too close to the bone? Probably. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before Comrade Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, has this impertinent tome removed from the national curriculum.
Of course neither Starmer nor other members of his government who have benefited from Lord Alli’s largesse are the first politicians to have accepted gifts. Since 2010, MPs have declared more than £6million in donations.
The problem is the way Starmer seems to consider himself different. It’s as though when someone else (especially a Tory) does it, it’s an outrage, but when it’s him or his family it’s fine as they deserve it while others don’t. Deep down he must know how bad this looks, hence, I suspect, all the ‘oversights’.
Filing donations under the wrong heading, neglecting to declare aspects (such as his wife’s clothing), trying to dress it up as something not as vain as having designer glasses, but something necessary; attempting to explain that stay at Lord Alli’s as the actions of a concerned parent: it’s like he’s embarrassed about it all.
So he should be. For Starmer, who never tires of reminding us of his holier-than-thou, son-of-a-toolmaker credentials, this is hypo-crisy on a grand scale.
Taking large donations for luxury items and accepting lavish hospitality from a wealthy man doesn’t tally with the image of the sanctimonious human rights lawyer.
Especially when you are depriving pensioners of a £300 annual fuel allowance that would barely pay for your tickets to football.
Not to mention launching an all-out assault on savers, grafters and wealth-creators. The double-standards are astounding.
No wonder Starmer and his team have tried to shove as much evidence as they can of Alli’s generosity under the carpet. Trouble is, as Nixon found, it’s not the crime that gets you but the cover-up.Â
Fact is, Starmer has had more freebies than any other major party leader in recent times, more than £100,000 worth, all while trying to present himself as some sort of socialist messiah.
Morally, intellectually and above all politically, that will never add up.
Shares in WeightWatchers have plummeted as weight-loss jabs threaten the lucrative diet industry. I wonder if that could possibly have anything to do with the recent uptick in scare stories about the negative side-effects of weight-loss drugs.
Follow the money…
Poor Harper’s nightie out
Life’s not all sunshine and rainbows for today’s generation of so-called nepo babies. Take Harper Beckham, aged 13. Here she is wearing what appears to be a pink nightie at her mother Victoria‘s fashion show in Paris.Â
I have to say, she looks less than happy about it, and who can blame her? Thirteen is an awkward, self-conscious age, especially for girls – the last thing she probably needs or wants is the whole world ogling her in such an exposing garment.Â
Poor kid. Can’t she just be allowed to wear jeans and trainers like a normal girl?
Harper Beckham, aged 13c, wears what appears to be a pink nightie at her mother Victoria’s fashion show in Paris
Three months ago, if you’d asked me what I thought the mood at this week’s Conservative Party conference would be like, I’d have said more miserable than a wet weekend in Margate. Now, I’m not so sure.Â
After weeks of catastrophic headlines for Labour, the mood, if not exactly upbeat, is far from despondent. Of course, they’ve an awfully long way to go to win back the trust of the British people before the next election; but if they choose the right leader, it might – might – just be possible.
Remember the real villains
What is it about wicked men that they all too often seem to escape justice? Jeffrey Epstein died in jail, leaving Ghislaine Maxwell to pay for his crimes; now Mohamed Al Fayed, having left behind a trail of rape and destruction, gets away with it.Â
As the Met Police declare they will ‘fully explore whether any other individuals could be pursued for any offences’, let’s not forget who the real monster was here.
The striking thing about Boris Johnson’s memoirs – as serialised in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday – is his brilliant turn of phrase.
Such a contrast to the deadly rhetoric of our current prime minister.
I particularly like his description of my ex-husband’s (Michael Gove) reaction when Johnson reminded him, after he had been diagnosed with Covid, that ‘Pericles died of the plague’. Johnson writes: ‘His spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought, like the penguin in Wallace and Gromit.’
A trick of the light, perhaps. I recall Michael actually being incredibly worried about Johnson at the time. Still, you know what they say: recollections may vary.
A penguin’s web feat
Pesto the giant baby emperor penguin, born nine months ago in Melbourne’s Sea Life Aquarium, has become a viral superstar owing to his comedically large girth.
The fact that Pesto is blissfully unaware either of his outsize dimensions or his billions of fans (including American singer Katy Perry, who paid him a visit) only makes him more adorable. This is precisely what the internet was invented for. Or should have been.
Pesto the giant baby emperor penguin, born nine months ago in Melbourne’s Sea Life Aquarium, has become a viral superstar owing to his comedically large girth
Three Just Stop Oil backers threw soup over two Van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery last week, hours after fellow activists were jailed for doing the same to another of his masterpieces.Â
What has Van Gogh done to them? Why not head to Tate Modern and throw soup over Turner Prize entries instead? Judging by this year’s lot, it would be a huge improvement.
