Of course Starmer is no stranger to the age old socialist occupation of feathering his own nest.
During his five years as head of the CPS, Starmer charged taxpayers more than £160,000 for a chauffeur driven car (he lived 4 miles from the office). He was paid £200,000 a year, plus £336,000 into a one-off, tax favoured pension scheme, set up by parliament just for him. He spent tens of thousands taking first and business class flights all over the world, from Hong Kong to Washington DC. I doubt he was chasing criminals. Overall, his expenses were three times higher than those of his successor.
On top of that, he routinely brags in parliament how he personally is responsible for the conviction of "thousands of rapists," but hid behind his woeful department when questioned as to why the CPS preferred to prosecute subpostmasters (and the CPS did, they weren't all private prosecutions by the Post Office) rather than the likes of Jimmy Savile or the grooming gangs in Rochdale and so many other cities.
Yes Jeremy. Awful. I looked at the pension thing. I wrote about it for this piece but dropped it for time. It’s jaw dropping.
Imagine being so privileged to have a special law named after you, that prevents you, uniquely, from having to pay tax on your million plus pension. And then claiming to be on the side of ‘working people’. And as you know he has registered more free gifts than any other MP. At least Corbyn seemed to live by his principles, even if otherwise, his moral compass was all over the place.
‘Grooming Gang’ is a deliberate attempt to sanitise depravity, in the interests of ‘community relations’ or similar such bureaucratic dissimulation. They are Racist Rape Gangs and should be called as such.
Watching British politics from afar, it's mind-boggling there's been no holding starmer to account over his non-prosecution of the rape gangs, especially as the latter continue today to ruin the lives of so many British girls.
I know people keep saying that this is no worse than the Tories who were just as bad or worse, but is this true? Or just a knee jerk assertion to mitigate (or try to) the present shenanigans.
The only thing anyone seems to mention is the wallpaper favoured by Mrs Johnson at No 10. But (whether rightly or wrongly) the PM is given an annual allowance to refresh the decor of the private residential part of No 10 to his or her own taste. The taste of Mrs J was more expensive than the allowance so they arranged for the excess cost to be paid privately. No burden on the taxpayer. TBH, I can’t get too excited by this and I always put the press’s hysterics down to their visceral hatred of Boris, analogous to the post cabinet meeting cake nonsense.
Were Tory ministers in receipt of tens of thousands for clothes, spectacles and exclusive sporting & music events? I’m sure if they had been the BBC and the Graun would have been all over it but I don’t recall it. Maybe my memory is going to seed as I age. Or maybe there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy in the air.
You echo my feelings on the matter Paul. I think the ‘Tories were worse’ narrative is just that. A story leftists are telling themselves because they don’t want to accept their pious saints have feet of clay.
It’s all bad. But this seems to be a lot of power in one man’s hands. Far more power than Johnson’s wall paper peddler ever wielded certainly.
> The taste of Mrs J was more expensive than the allowance so they arranged for the excess cost to be paid privately. No burden on the taxpayer.
This is exactly what Starmer et al are accused of, Paul. It's not that they took money from the government. It's that they accepted gifts from private individuals. No burden on the taxpayer. The vibe is that these gifts should be considered to be bribes — exactly as the gifts given to Johnson were.
Yes Ragged. And the entire establishment shouted corruption and attempted to hound Johnson out of office because of it. (He was foolish enough to give them
More ammo until the eventually succeeded ) I’m not hearing that clarion call in this case at all. But ultimately this is not about Johnson. Or the Tories. They are over. This is about Starmer.
My memory is that Johnson got in trouble for receiving secret donations and lying about them to the electoral commission. Receiving donations is allowed (even if unsavoury) as long as you report them. Lying about the donations that you receive is illegal and that's what Johnson got in trouble for.
Starmer's unsavoury (but not illegal) gifts were received over the last five years at the same time that most other MPs received unsavoury (but not illegal) gifts.
As I said below, they should change the laws to make these gifts illegal but it seems unfair to hound Starmer out of office because someone bought him (legal) tickets to a few football matches and to see Taylor Swift.
I think it's also significant that Johnson was ultimately hounded out of office by his own party (including his cabinet) rather than the establishment.
Except Johnson didn’t keep his wallpaper after he was hounded out of office. Nor can he wear his wallpaper on private occasions as Free Gear Keir can when he’s taking other freebies.
Again, this is a story about the Labour Party. Not a story about trying to work out who was worse, Labour or the Tories. No one was insisting on making these comparisons when the story was about Johnson and his wallpaper. I’m not interested in drawing a moral equivalence. It’s just a distraction.
I don’t care. At least not today. Johnson is not in power today. Let’s look at what the current awful government is doing. Not what the last awful government did.
They may be doing awful things and, of course, we should protest those.
But the gifts that we are both so upset about were received over the last five years. I think it's misleading to suggest that he received them all while he has been in government. Cabinet ministers don't even have to declare their gifts on the public register.
During that same period, Starmer was not even in the top five gift recipients. The top recipient was Robert Jenrick who was given £200,000 (mostly in cash from anonymous donors) rather than the tickets to football matches and fancy glasses that Starmer received. It's relevant that one of the leading candidates for the Tory party leadership received huge bribes, no?
And Starmer should be too if his party had any principles! I’m a former Labour voter and am disgusted with his behaviour. In fact not just him but the whole lot of them.
As I just said to Mr LSO above, Starmer is not even close to the top of the list of MPs who received gifts. All these gifts were received legally and honestly. By contrast, Johnson had a hard time for breaking the rules and being dishonest.
I expect Starmer will attempt to change the rules to ban all gifts like these. I hope he does.
Sorry Ragged, I object to the constant need to reframe and re contextualise this scandal as one about the moral equivalence between Labour greed and Tory greed. It’s not. It’s a story about Labour greed.
About one man having an obviously un democratic level of influence over our government. About buying that influence with trinkets which are only coming to light because a supine press has finally grown some nuts. It’s about corruption, moral and material. And it’s about the hypocrisy of a political party which claimed, in opposition to be whiter than white, while raking in a Santa’s sack of freebies at every opportunity.
This is an unforced error on the part of the Labour Party. Made worse by their endless sermonising and sanctimony. It has revealed that they are happy to swap their principles for some designer clothes and their integrity to stand in a DJ booth in Ibiza.
Maybe Starmer will change the rules, but he hasn’t, and hasn’t said he will. It’s pure speculation. Even if he does, it doesn’t put him on the moral high ground, it just means he got caught and the he needs to respond because the public find this level of blatant grift unacceptable.
It has literally nothing whatsoever to do with the Tory Party.
PS: are there no private gymnastic facilities for the youngsters of North London or would it be a social faux pas even to suggest such a thing where the beneficial State has its own offering?
Good point Paul. There was a part of this story where I wanted to highlight how this is just another way how public services which are nominally for the less advantaged, or ‘everyone’ are taken over by the middle classes. (Me included. I totally accept that).
I’m pretty sure that the take up of Surestart places also reflects this. But that’s just from what I’ve read. It’s more complicated than that. No one is being excluded. But nonetheless..
These things represent a transfer of wealth, from the poor to the middle classes, effectively the less well off are subsiding handouts to the middle classes. The worst example is ev subsidies.
As an example. I vaguely know a black cab driver who, lives on a North London housing estate. He subsided, through his taxes and the government ‘green’ scheme the cost of a Tesla of a well to do family of my acquaintance. Who gets to feel virtuous at the same time. This doesn’t seem right.
I didn’t want to get into all this in the piece. But it was very much in the back of my mind. Best to you.
Yup - the green brigade, almost exclusively middle-class, get their subsidies and care not for the distributional impacts of the policies they espouse and benefit from.
I love the analogy. Brilliant read. Corruption by all. Everyone grabbing theirs before the grabbing runs out. The end of civilization. Maybe it’s time for that to end.
First of all, I of course agree with you that 1) politicians should not be allowed to receive these gifts and 2) that they should be filled with shame that they accepted gifts from rich Qataris and other people who want to buy influence over the government. It is nothing short of bribery.
The whole sleazy enterprise should be banned and the politicians who accept these bribes should be ejected.
I think it should be noted though that the reason Labour are getting in such trouble now is because they recorded all these gifts in a public registry over the last five years while they weren’t in government. Members of the government are subject to different rules which is why we are not hearing about the bribes the other lot received. This is a scandal that blackens the reputations of all politicians, not just the labour government.
Singapore has rules that say government ministers are absolutely not allowed to receive gifts like the ones ours receive and if they do, they are fired and tried in court for corruption. We should have laws like that.
But Singapore pays their ministers a proper salary so the best people get attracted into government instead of the second rate also-rans that we get. The prime minister of Singapore gets ten times as much as ours. Maybe that's a bit too much but maybe our prime minister should earn more than a manager at Sainsbury.
If cabinet members got paid a proper salary, maybe they’d be able to afford their own tickets to football matches and the clothes they need to wear when they step out onto the world stage.
Hey Ragged. I agree with you about rewarding politicians properly. Or maybe it should be performance related, then we could demand a refund.
And I think we should copy a lot more from Singapore than their method of paying their politicians.
But I think that’s a bit of distraction at the moment. No one was making that argument when the Tories, and especially Boris Johnson was lording it up o other people’s money. Now it’s suddenly a systemic problem, not a greed problem. I just don’t buy it.
I think the reason that Labour are getting in such trouble now (though I don’t think they are tbh, it’s all superficial stuff really-but we might not agree on that) is that they were so typically sanctimonious in opposition, at exactly the time, as you say, when they were getting a lot of this stuff. People don’t like hypocrisy and now they’ve been caught, the Labour politicians, and especially Starmer seem snooty and condescending. I can’t imagine any Tory making the same high minded excuses and not being hauled over the coals for it. Again. I don’t care for the Tories, they’re just the best example of how else this would play out if the legacy media wasn’t broadly on Labour’s side. Which it is.
But ultimately I think we agree. Saying it’s OK to get a bribe if I register that bribe is not a good system!
Also, FWIW, I was not trying to excuse Labour. I just find it odd that the press aren't giving more attention to the corruptness of the whole system and observing that ministers of all parties are guilty of this.
Totally agree. But this is where I see a disparity and you don’t. The mainstream media especially the bbc and sky news (I don’t watch much either) are definitely covering this story. But only at the ‘freebies are bad’ level. The deeper implications of corruption and buying influence seem completely ignored. Only Michael Crick seems to be looking at the Labour Party selection process. And he started that before all this blew up.
I take your ‘all parties’ point. But I don’t recall anyone at all, at any point, saying this was anything but a ‘Tory sleaze’ issue when Tory sleaze was the problem. Was this genuinely your thinking when it was all about Johnson’s wallpaper.- that the system of mp remuneration need reform-Not sure it was Ragged 😉
Can anyone explain to me why there was so much fuss about Boris' wallpaper considering it was in a government property? Did he steam it off and take it with him when he was booted out?
Ha ha. Good point Iris. It was vulgar. And gold is too reminiscent of Donald Trump for comfort. I expect those were also factors. But as I say to Ragged. We seem to be discussing Boris Johnson now. No thanks, he’s yesterday’s news, this is about the venal nature of Starmer and his gang of greedy graspers.
I thought that Johnson was unusually corrupt. Still do.
I think accepting free tickets for football matches and Taylor Swift is nowhere near the same level of corruption but I think it is corruption all the same and needs to be stamped out.
I'll put us down as "fully agreed, with a couple of asterisks".
I'm not so sure about the legacy media being on Labour's side. Mirror & Guardian, sure. The others, definitely not. I don't watch much TV news any more but Laura Whatsername is certainly more sympathetic to the right. Most of the high-brow magazines are clearly lefties, I'll give you that.
I don't get this. These people are on £150k plus, plus considerable expenses, And they have been on damned good money for a long time, especially Starmer who has milked the taxpayer for decades. And you say they cannot afford a few decent clothes? Dear, oh dear. (Shakes head in disbelief)
You were the one who said they could not afford proper clothes on their salaries!
Two points. Politicians – the successful ones – usually expect their financial reward AFTER they have left office, when their prestige and record are valued by businesses and institutions. Most people take an income cut when they retire. Second, the set of skills needed to succeed in business is not necessarily the same as that needed in politics where most issues are not market issues at all – providing non-market services and having due consideration for the distributional implications of any policies introduced - something which would never occur to a private business.
Many people choose occupations which do not maximise earnings but give them a way of life they prefer. It’s not all about the money and would be politicians would probably make lousy businessmen, et vice versa.
By the way, I don’t think you are correct in saying these gifts to Labour politicians occurred when they were in opposition. And if they were, they hardly needed new clothes “for the world stage” when they weren’t even on it.
Also, I'm not sure any career quite prepares someone for a role in government but business, finance and law are probably up there. They are certainly better than coming straight from Oxford with a PPE degree.
Agreed. Some business experience is useful, probably essential. The worst type of politician is the one who never worked outside of politics like 90 per cent of the population. But my point is that captains of industry (or law chambers, etc) have a different skill set and ambition from would-be leaders of the country.
My understanding is that Keir Starmer's bounty of £160k (for example) was accepted over a period of five years and that over half of that consisted of tickets to football matches.
You've no doubt seen the other lot's attempts to gain the top spot:
"The frontrunner among MPs, Robert Jenrick, has received just over £250,000 in total donations, ahead of Tom Tugendhat on almost £225,000, Kemi Badenoch on £200,000 and James Cleverly on £180,000."
Ha yes. And while I admire the Guardians desperate attempts to turn this into a whataboutery story concerning Tory greed, it’s not. It’s a story about Labour greed.
And now Starmer is paying some back and has already, along with the rest of them, said they’ll stop taking money for ‘clothes’. So that’s a tacit admission what they did was wrong.
I appreciate that tomorrow this might be a story about the rubbish Tories, but today, it’s all about the rubbish Labour Party.
They’ve got great power. Now they need to take great responsibility.
I have more faith in our leaders than you do. I don’t think Starmer will be anccepting any more gifts any time soon and I don’t think he’ll be allowing his cabinet to either. And I think he’ll push for a ban so he’ll earn some labour-governments-are-more-moral kudos.
I think his motivations will be selfish and opportunistic but I’ll take that if it gets us a ban.
Never listened to that Graham. I’m a bit of a heretic in that I never really warmed to the Beatles. But I do like George’s most famous songs. Here Comes the Sun.and My Guitar.
Well I'm with you on the Beatles....generally overrated. I remember in my teen years in the 60s, everytime a Beatles single was released thinking "is this good?" and kind of wanting to think so. But when a new Stones single came out you didn't have to wonder, you knew for sure it was a stunner.
When you get the chance LSO check out the 'All Things Must Pass' triple album. It's full of stunning (heavily Phil Spector influenced) tracks. 'What is Life' and 'Wah Wah' are two that spring to mind.
It's not a Beatles album by the way. It was released by George Harrison soon after they split and is full of his pent up songs that he couldn't get onto the Beatles albums because of the Lennon/McCartney dominance.
Great - It's dark humour I know but extremely witty. A mix of satire, gallows humour and insightful cynicism. I loved the Lammy reference. Well, he was 'educated' at SOAS inter alia. So who would need to invest in books and an atlas after that? It has occurred to me that it may be possible to teach a parrot to say "Ceasefire .... negotiated settlement ... two state solution ... who's a pretty boy" except for the danger that such a parrot might end up in the cabinet when the going gets really tough.
Of course Starmer is no stranger to the age old socialist occupation of feathering his own nest.
During his five years as head of the CPS, Starmer charged taxpayers more than £160,000 for a chauffeur driven car (he lived 4 miles from the office). He was paid £200,000 a year, plus £336,000 into a one-off, tax favoured pension scheme, set up by parliament just for him. He spent tens of thousands taking first and business class flights all over the world, from Hong Kong to Washington DC. I doubt he was chasing criminals. Overall, his expenses were three times higher than those of his successor.
On top of that, he routinely brags in parliament how he personally is responsible for the conviction of "thousands of rapists," but hid behind his woeful department when questioned as to why the CPS preferred to prosecute subpostmasters (and the CPS did, they weren't all private prosecutions by the Post Office) rather than the likes of Jimmy Savile or the grooming gangs in Rochdale and so many other cities.
Yes Jeremy. Awful. I looked at the pension thing. I wrote about it for this piece but dropped it for time. It’s jaw dropping.
Imagine being so privileged to have a special law named after you, that prevents you, uniquely, from having to pay tax on your million plus pension. And then claiming to be on the side of ‘working people’. And as you know he has registered more free gifts than any other MP. At least Corbyn seemed to live by his principles, even if otherwise, his moral compass was all over the place.
‘Grooming Gang’ is a deliberate attempt to sanitise depravity, in the interests of ‘community relations’ or similar such bureaucratic dissimulation. They are Racist Rape Gangs and should be called as such.
Certainly Dan. A crime so depraved it can’t be called by its true name. And for exactly the reasons you say.
Watching British politics from afar, it's mind-boggling there's been no holding starmer to account over his non-prosecution of the rape gangs, especially as the latter continue today to ruin the lives of so many British girls.
And on a serious note, read this in today's DT: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/30/the-wests-true-enemy-is-clear-we-must-strike-now/
Yes Mrs Bucket. I read this last night. Very good piece.
I know people keep saying that this is no worse than the Tories who were just as bad or worse, but is this true? Or just a knee jerk assertion to mitigate (or try to) the present shenanigans.
The only thing anyone seems to mention is the wallpaper favoured by Mrs Johnson at No 10. But (whether rightly or wrongly) the PM is given an annual allowance to refresh the decor of the private residential part of No 10 to his or her own taste. The taste of Mrs J was more expensive than the allowance so they arranged for the excess cost to be paid privately. No burden on the taxpayer. TBH, I can’t get too excited by this and I always put the press’s hysterics down to their visceral hatred of Boris, analogous to the post cabinet meeting cake nonsense.
Were Tory ministers in receipt of tens of thousands for clothes, spectacles and exclusive sporting & music events? I’m sure if they had been the BBC and the Graun would have been all over it but I don’t recall it. Maybe my memory is going to seed as I age. Or maybe there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy in the air.
You echo my feelings on the matter Paul. I think the ‘Tories were worse’ narrative is just that. A story leftists are telling themselves because they don’t want to accept their pious saints have feet of clay.
It’s all bad. But this seems to be a lot of power in one man’s hands. Far more power than Johnson’s wall paper peddler ever wielded certainly.
> The taste of Mrs J was more expensive than the allowance so they arranged for the excess cost to be paid privately. No burden on the taxpayer.
This is exactly what Starmer et al are accused of, Paul. It's not that they took money from the government. It's that they accepted gifts from private individuals. No burden on the taxpayer. The vibe is that these gifts should be considered to be bribes — exactly as the gifts given to Johnson were.
Yes Ragged. And the entire establishment shouted corruption and attempted to hound Johnson out of office because of it. (He was foolish enough to give them
More ammo until the eventually succeeded ) I’m not hearing that clarion call in this case at all. But ultimately this is not about Johnson. Or the Tories. They are over. This is about Starmer.
My memory is that Johnson got in trouble for receiving secret donations and lying about them to the electoral commission. Receiving donations is allowed (even if unsavoury) as long as you report them. Lying about the donations that you receive is illegal and that's what Johnson got in trouble for.
Starmer's unsavoury (but not illegal) gifts were received over the last five years at the same time that most other MPs received unsavoury (but not illegal) gifts.
As I said below, they should change the laws to make these gifts illegal but it seems unfair to hound Starmer out of office because someone bought him (legal) tickets to a few football matches and to see Taylor Swift.
I think it's also significant that Johnson was ultimately hounded out of office by his own party (including his cabinet) rather than the establishment.
Except Johnson didn’t keep his wallpaper after he was hounded out of office. Nor can he wear his wallpaper on private occasions as Free Gear Keir can when he’s taking other freebies.
Again, this is a story about the Labour Party. Not a story about trying to work out who was worse, Labour or the Tories. No one was insisting on making these comparisons when the story was about Johnson and his wallpaper. I’m not interested in drawing a moral equivalence. It’s just a distraction.
Johnson was hounded out of office by his own party for, among other things, lying about those gifts. Not just for receiving them.
Also, the wallpaper was not the only gift he received. He received lots of other gifts too.
I don’t care. At least not today. Johnson is not in power today. Let’s look at what the current awful government is doing. Not what the last awful government did.
They may be doing awful things and, of course, we should protest those.
But the gifts that we are both so upset about were received over the last five years. I think it's misleading to suggest that he received them all while he has been in government. Cabinet ministers don't even have to declare their gifts on the public register.
During that same period, Starmer was not even in the top five gift recipients. The top recipient was Robert Jenrick who was given £200,000 (mostly in cash from anonymous donors) rather than the tickets to football matches and fancy glasses that Starmer received. It's relevant that one of the leading candidates for the Tory party leadership received huge bribes, no?
And Starmer should be too if his party had any principles! I’m a former Labour voter and am disgusted with his behaviour. In fact not just him but the whole lot of them.
As I just said to Mr LSO above, Starmer is not even close to the top of the list of MPs who received gifts. All these gifts were received legally and honestly. By contrast, Johnson had a hard time for breaking the rules and being dishonest.
I expect Starmer will attempt to change the rules to ban all gifts like these. I hope he does.
Perhaps legally. I’m not sure about honestly.
Sorry Ragged, I object to the constant need to reframe and re contextualise this scandal as one about the moral equivalence between Labour greed and Tory greed. It’s not. It’s a story about Labour greed.
About one man having an obviously un democratic level of influence over our government. About buying that influence with trinkets which are only coming to light because a supine press has finally grown some nuts. It’s about corruption, moral and material. And it’s about the hypocrisy of a political party which claimed, in opposition to be whiter than white, while raking in a Santa’s sack of freebies at every opportunity.
This is an unforced error on the part of the Labour Party. Made worse by their endless sermonising and sanctimony. It has revealed that they are happy to swap their principles for some designer clothes and their integrity to stand in a DJ booth in Ibiza.
Maybe Starmer will change the rules, but he hasn’t, and hasn’t said he will. It’s pure speculation. Even if he does, it doesn’t put him on the moral high ground, it just means he got caught and the he needs to respond because the public find this level of blatant grift unacceptable.
It has literally nothing whatsoever to do with the Tory Party.
PS: are there no private gymnastic facilities for the youngsters of North London or would it be a social faux pas even to suggest such a thing where the beneficial State has its own offering?
Good point Paul. There was a part of this story where I wanted to highlight how this is just another way how public services which are nominally for the less advantaged, or ‘everyone’ are taken over by the middle classes. (Me included. I totally accept that).
I’m pretty sure that the take up of Surestart places also reflects this. But that’s just from what I’ve read. It’s more complicated than that. No one is being excluded. But nonetheless..
These things represent a transfer of wealth, from the poor to the middle classes, effectively the less well off are subsiding handouts to the middle classes. The worst example is ev subsidies.
As an example. I vaguely know a black cab driver who, lives on a North London housing estate. He subsided, through his taxes and the government ‘green’ scheme the cost of a Tesla of a well to do family of my acquaintance. Who gets to feel virtuous at the same time. This doesn’t seem right.
I didn’t want to get into all this in the piece. But it was very much in the back of my mind. Best to you.
Yup - the green brigade, almost exclusively middle-class, get their subsidies and care not for the distributional impacts of the policies they espouse and benefit from.
I love the analogy. Brilliant read. Corruption by all. Everyone grabbing theirs before the grabbing runs out. The end of civilization. Maybe it’s time for that to end.
Thank you RMac
First of all, I of course agree with you that 1) politicians should not be allowed to receive these gifts and 2) that they should be filled with shame that they accepted gifts from rich Qataris and other people who want to buy influence over the government. It is nothing short of bribery.
The whole sleazy enterprise should be banned and the politicians who accept these bribes should be ejected.
I think it should be noted though that the reason Labour are getting in such trouble now is because they recorded all these gifts in a public registry over the last five years while they weren’t in government. Members of the government are subject to different rules which is why we are not hearing about the bribes the other lot received. This is a scandal that blackens the reputations of all politicians, not just the labour government.
Singapore has rules that say government ministers are absolutely not allowed to receive gifts like the ones ours receive and if they do, they are fired and tried in court for corruption. We should have laws like that.
But Singapore pays their ministers a proper salary so the best people get attracted into government instead of the second rate also-rans that we get. The prime minister of Singapore gets ten times as much as ours. Maybe that's a bit too much but maybe our prime minister should earn more than a manager at Sainsbury.
If cabinet members got paid a proper salary, maybe they’d be able to afford their own tickets to football matches and the clothes they need to wear when they step out onto the world stage.
Hey Ragged. I agree with you about rewarding politicians properly. Or maybe it should be performance related, then we could demand a refund.
And I think we should copy a lot more from Singapore than their method of paying their politicians.
But I think that’s a bit of distraction at the moment. No one was making that argument when the Tories, and especially Boris Johnson was lording it up o other people’s money. Now it’s suddenly a systemic problem, not a greed problem. I just don’t buy it.
I think the reason that Labour are getting in such trouble now (though I don’t think they are tbh, it’s all superficial stuff really-but we might not agree on that) is that they were so typically sanctimonious in opposition, at exactly the time, as you say, when they were getting a lot of this stuff. People don’t like hypocrisy and now they’ve been caught, the Labour politicians, and especially Starmer seem snooty and condescending. I can’t imagine any Tory making the same high minded excuses and not being hauled over the coals for it. Again. I don’t care for the Tories, they’re just the best example of how else this would play out if the legacy media wasn’t broadly on Labour’s side. Which it is.
But ultimately I think we agree. Saying it’s OK to get a bribe if I register that bribe is not a good system!
Also, FWIW, I was not trying to excuse Labour. I just find it odd that the press aren't giving more attention to the corruptness of the whole system and observing that ministers of all parties are guilty of this.
Totally agree. But this is where I see a disparity and you don’t. The mainstream media especially the bbc and sky news (I don’t watch much either) are definitely covering this story. But only at the ‘freebies are bad’ level. The deeper implications of corruption and buying influence seem completely ignored. Only Michael Crick seems to be looking at the Labour Party selection process. And he started that before all this blew up.
I take your ‘all parties’ point. But I don’t recall anyone at all, at any point, saying this was anything but a ‘Tory sleaze’ issue when Tory sleaze was the problem. Was this genuinely your thinking when it was all about Johnson’s wallpaper.- that the system of mp remuneration need reform-Not sure it was Ragged 😉
Can anyone explain to me why there was so much fuss about Boris' wallpaper considering it was in a government property? Did he steam it off and take it with him when he was booted out?
Ha ha. Good point Iris. It was vulgar. And gold is too reminiscent of Donald Trump for comfort. I expect those were also factors. But as I say to Ragged. We seem to be discussing Boris Johnson now. No thanks, he’s yesterday’s news, this is about the venal nature of Starmer and his gang of greedy graspers.
Has Starmer covered it up with magnolia?
I thought that Johnson was unusually corrupt. Still do.
I think accepting free tickets for football matches and Taylor Swift is nowhere near the same level of corruption but I think it is corruption all the same and needs to be stamped out.
Me too. Thats why he got a special mention in the piece.
Also, I remind you, I have never voted Labour.
Ha that’s funny. I have! More than once.
I'll put us down as "fully agreed, with a couple of asterisks".
I'm not so sure about the legacy media being on Labour's side. Mirror & Guardian, sure. The others, definitely not. I don't watch much TV news any more but Laura Whatsername is certainly more sympathetic to the right. Most of the high-brow magazines are clearly lefties, I'll give you that.
I would have said the BBC's Snearer In Chief Laura leans so fart to the left she is perhaps meeting herself coming back?
I don't get this. These people are on £150k plus, plus considerable expenses, And they have been on damned good money for a long time, especially Starmer who has milked the taxpayer for decades. And you say they cannot afford a few decent clothes? Dear, oh dear. (Shakes head in disbelief)
What don't you get? I said politicians should not receive gifts like these and they amount to bribery. Do you disagree?
The people who are successful in finance, culture, law and business — the kind of people we might want in government — earn way, way more than £150k.
You were the one who said they could not afford proper clothes on their salaries!
Two points. Politicians – the successful ones – usually expect their financial reward AFTER they have left office, when their prestige and record are valued by businesses and institutions. Most people take an income cut when they retire. Second, the set of skills needed to succeed in business is not necessarily the same as that needed in politics where most issues are not market issues at all – providing non-market services and having due consideration for the distributional implications of any policies introduced - something which would never occur to a private business.
Many people choose occupations which do not maximise earnings but give them a way of life they prefer. It’s not all about the money and would be politicians would probably make lousy businessmen, et vice versa.
By the way, I don’t think you are correct in saying these gifts to Labour politicians occurred when they were in opposition. And if they were, they hardly needed new clothes “for the world stage” when they weren’t even on it.
Also, I'm not sure any career quite prepares someone for a role in government but business, finance and law are probably up there. They are certainly better than coming straight from Oxford with a PPE degree.
Agreed. Some business experience is useful, probably essential. The worst type of politician is the one who never worked outside of politics like 90 per cent of the population. But my point is that captains of industry (or law chambers, etc) have a different skill set and ambition from would-be leaders of the country.
I agree.
My understanding is that Keir Starmer's bounty of £160k (for example) was accepted over a period of five years and that over half of that consisted of tickets to football matches.
Deliciously amusing yet scarily prophetic.
Just way at I was going for Seán. Thanks
You've no doubt seen the other lot's attempts to gain the top spot:
"The frontrunner among MPs, Robert Jenrick, has received just over £250,000 in total donations, ahead of Tom Tugendhat on almost £225,000, Kemi Badenoch on £200,000 and James Cleverly on £180,000."
They put Starmer with his £160k to shame.
Ha yes. And while I admire the Guardians desperate attempts to turn this into a whataboutery story concerning Tory greed, it’s not. It’s a story about Labour greed.
And now Starmer is paying some back and has already, along with the rest of them, said they’ll stop taking money for ‘clothes’. So that’s a tacit admission what they did was wrong.
I appreciate that tomorrow this might be a story about the rubbish Tories, but today, it’s all about the rubbish Labour Party.
They’ve got great power. Now they need to take great responsibility.
Definitely wrong. I hope it gives them a bipartisan reason to fix it properly now.
I don’t think they see it as problem to be fixed. I think they see it as a cookie jar, they were caught putting their hand in.
I have more faith in our leaders than you do. I don’t think Starmer will be anccepting any more gifts any time soon and I don’t think he’ll be allowing his cabinet to either. And I think he’ll push for a ban so he’ll earn some labour-governments-are-more-moral kudos.
I think his motivations will be selfish and opportunistic but I’ll take that if it gets us a ban.
I really wanna see you Lord but it takes so long My Lord
Just this minute listening to it Graham. Beautiful song.
And off a great triple album..... the best thing that any Beatle did in my view.
Never listened to that Graham. I’m a bit of a heretic in that I never really warmed to the Beatles. But I do like George’s most famous songs. Here Comes the Sun.and My Guitar.
Well I'm with you on the Beatles....generally overrated. I remember in my teen years in the 60s, everytime a Beatles single was released thinking "is this good?" and kind of wanting to think so. But when a new Stones single came out you didn't have to wonder, you knew for sure it was a stunner.
When you get the chance LSO check out the 'All Things Must Pass' triple album. It's full of stunning (heavily Phil Spector influenced) tracks. 'What is Life' and 'Wah Wah' are two that spring to mind.
It's not a Beatles album by the way. It was released by George Harrison soon after they split and is full of his pent up songs that he couldn't get onto the Beatles albums because of the Lennon/McCartney dominance.
Sold. I’m putting on my Spotify playlist for tomorrow right now.
We need a 21st century Cromwell (who likes Christmas and dancing).
Phillip Schofield seems free at the moment. 🧐
Yes he might enjoy army life 🤔
Brilliant!
Great - It's dark humour I know but extremely witty. A mix of satire, gallows humour and insightful cynicism. I loved the Lammy reference. Well, he was 'educated' at SOAS inter alia. So who would need to invest in books and an atlas after that? It has occurred to me that it may be possible to teach a parrot to say "Ceasefire .... negotiated settlement ... two state solution ... who's a pretty boy" except for the danger that such a parrot might end up in the cabinet when the going gets really tough.
Very kind Michael. Thank you.
Lammy is a national embarrassment amongst a sea of non entities. (Of all parties)