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Starmer Drama Karma?

by 173 Comments

I am disappoint.

I was filled with hope on election day, dashed immediately by the doom and gloom of a financial black hole. They might have settled some pay disputes and jailed some racist rioters, but they have hardly hit the ground running with a host of dramatic reforms impacting health, education, welfare, social care, justice, prisons, housing, and so on.

With all the years of preparation, I expected more. After all, Blair’s first hundred days involved some excitement.

Now, with a triumphant Labour conference about to start, there is an expenses scandal, a crony pay scandal, a sense of entitlement scandal and reported infighting at the top.

All these politicians are the same, aren’t they?

1

Comments

  1. Pretty much as I expected, you’d hardly notice any difference.
    Except they now have the same excuse as the Tories had when they won in 2010.
    “Look at the mess they’ve left things in!”

    The financial institutions and “the market” are still calling the shots. The proof of the pudding will be what things are like this time next year.

  2. It’s a bit early to call I think. Far from ideal but clothes for an election at least has some relationship to the election. It’s not (yet) holidays and flights. But they need to up their game on this because the media will have an absolute whale of a time if they don’t.

    • Our local elections yesterday: winner was a wet behind the ears Tory Boy who looked like Beaker from The Muppets. This after the previous incumbent became our MP, the first Labour candidate in donkeys years to oust the Tories. I’m certain this was about winter fuel payments.

  3. We’re reaching that tipping point where the phrase “due to the failings of the last government” is no longer a get out clause. The rhetoric “it’s going to be tough” suggests (cynically) that they’re not sure how to enact the policy ideas
    (didn’t hear them as “commitments”, only “ideas”)

  4. Suits for him….

    Frocks for her…

    Even with a gratis £2,500 pair of glasses he can’t see why
    voters might be upset.

    Should have gone to Face Savers

  5. Boris Johnson was swimming in personal donations, corporate gigs, preferential private loans and a fully funded bunga bunga weekend when he was a senior political figure.

    I see nothing wrong with accepting a donation like this. A clothing expert to help choose and advise on good clothes to wear when you are doing your job. Appearance shouldn’t matter – but it does. Good clothing is noticed by many and it adds to credibility.

    If Starmer parades about in a 50K mankini made out of bacon, well that’s another thing entirely.

    • Are you telling me that a man with Starmer’s experience in the legal profession needs help to dress himself? It’s not so much the freebies that bother me, it’s the lack of political nous. One shitshow after another, and every one entirely predictable.

      • I would say every PM would have had a wardrobe consultant and probably a clothing allowance of some kind. Perhaps buried in the intricacies of remuneration and probably tax-payer funded. In a given year, I can get away with two or three work suits and a combination of less formal work clothing – but if you’re the PM you need far more work clothes than most people.

        I can see that this isn’t a popular response but I can’t help feeling that the media who are promoting this story aren’t going to be checking on how this was done in the past with previous conservative PMs.

        • I think the clothes donation is a bit of a side show to what I perceive as Tig’s main (justifiable IMHO) complaint that the new government hasn’t hit the ground running with at least a vision of how they want to transform the UK’s public services (‘more growth’ doesn’t really cut it, does it? OK, but how? Or is it just a magic slogan)?

          But I think the whole expenses issue was largely done and dusted while Starmer was in opposition and in campaign mode – predating his time as PM and architect of what seems like nu-austerity lite.

          • Clothes, schmothes. The right wing press (i.e. most of them) will have a go at anything they can hang on a Labour politician. When Michael Foot showed up at the Cenotaph with comrade Thatcher one year they villified him and accused him of looking too scruffy in a donkey jacket, when in fact his coat was an expensive Jaeger item bought from Harrods. Probably fortuitous that Starmer hasn’t been donated anything from that establishment right now – they’d have made something of that if they could. It’s all bollocks drummed up by grinning chinless Ruperts with trophy jobs.

              • Yebbut:

                Name of donor: Viaro Energy
                Address of donor: 5th Floor Viaro House, 20-23 Holborn, London EC1N 2JD
                Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: A seat at Viaro Energy’s table at the London Air Ambulance Charity Gala, value £2,500
                Date received: 7 February 2024
                Date accepted: 7 February 2024
                Donor status: company, registration 12471979
                (Registered 15 February 2024; updated 4 March 2024)

                Name of donor: The Football Association
                Address of donor: Wembley Stadium, Wembley, London HA9 0WS
                Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: Two hospitality tickets for me and a family member to attend Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour”, value £584
                Date received: 15 August 2024
                Date accepted: 15 August 2024
                Donor status: company, registration 00077797
                (Registered 2 September 2024)

                Where does one draw the line?

            • Don’t do yourself down, Tig I think you are as articulate and certainly more concise than the Graun on this.

              Blair didn’t think he would win so comprehensively in 97, so marshalled ready for a moderate, but disciplined first 100 days – that is my impression.

              Starmer, by contrast, seemed to have the notorious, and much cited Ming Vase approach – don’t say anything, don’t make any promises, don’t frighten the horses, just don’t, OK?

              The trouble is that a Ming Vase can still be broken after the election, and the pieces are very sharp.

              I’m wondering if centrist Dad Kier can actually be passionate and articulate anything that isn’t ‘hold tight and hope for growth, while being decent middle manager’.

                • His best approach to the media would be to tough it out and certainly not try to curry favour like Blair and Campbell did with Merdeoch. But for that to work I think he needs a strong message/ rebuttal each time (daily) they throw a new accusation his way. The massive sulk Corbyn indulged in was so counterproductive, he might as well have put a fin on his back, jumped in a barrel and got Abbott and C̶o̶s̶t̶e̶l̶l̶o̶ McDonnell to hand out revolvers.

    • If Starmer were still in opposition and it was a Conservative government raking in the freebies from donors in exchange for access, what do you think he would be saying?

      It’s the hypocrisy that really rankles.

  7. Are the right-wing press still talking? Really?

    And anyway, if Starmer doesn’t get an allowance for his clobber, he might end up looking as shite as Fat Boy J. does.

    I’ll have Starmer, thanks, any day of the week, and it’s nice he wants to see Arsenal finish second in the most predictable league in the whole Pyramid. Keeps him in touch with the great unwashed. Way to go, Starms.

  8. It might be early days, but it seems like this lot are exactly as blinkered and out of the touch as the last lot.

    Considering these are highly experienced politicians and (presumably) of at least average intelligence, did none of them foresee that accepting thousands of pounds in donations while planning to cut money for OAPs might look bad and harm their cause?

    Also, Starmer and his wife allegedly earn a combined 200k a year, and he is, after all, the leader of the country, a job that surely comes with some sort of clothing allowance and a minion to tell him and Lady S what to wear. Does he really need a donor to give him money for clothes and glasses?

    Yes, I expect the Tories left behind a fiscal abyss, but using that as an excuse is going to wear pretty thin when the planned cuts (after year upon year of “austerity”) start to bite and people recall how senior Labour members were pocketing the kinds of freebies that most can only dream of.

    • Hmm. Re ‘cutting money to OAPs’. Due to the triple lock the state pension increased by £1874.60, almost 20%, between 2023 and 2025. The pension is still pretty meagre if that is your only source of income, and the optics are very poor, but that line of attack doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny though it should have been seen coming a mile off and prepared for.

      • The Winter Fuel Allowance was introduced by the Tories purely as a sweetener for one of their major traditional voter bases. It’s a fairly recent thing that people were expected to do without previously.
        I’m a pensioner myself and I was of course glad to receive it when it was introduced – who wouldn’t be? – despite not really needing it until very recently.
        I’m sure there were some other pensioners who really did need it when it was introduced.
        Anyway, my habit until the last couple of post-covid years, was to pass it on to a couple of homeless charities that I supported at the time. Sadly I can’t do that any more on that scale.
        Nowadays I’m not so well-off in my retirement and am receiving Pension Credit on top of my state pension and Housing Benefit from my local authority. Finances are tight but just about manageable.
        Being a Pension Credit recipient, this latest restriction of the Winter Fuel Payment is not going to affect me. I’m sure there are people whose circumstances are such that they won’t be Pension Credit-eligible and thus will feel the loss of WFA. If it was abolished altogether I’d certainly feel it.
        For all state benefits there has to be a cutoff point and it’s sad when people in need fall the wrong side of a line, but such is the way things are in a society like ours.

        • That’s what I thought, that it was a cynical Tory move to cement their appeal to their most reliable supports. But apparently it was Gordon Brown who introduced it as Chancellor in 1997, and for over 60s rather than pensionable age. I was 30 in 1997 and didn’t pay much attention to provision for pensioners, and I’ll be 60 in a couple of years and see no reason why I should qualify for it now.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Fuel_Payment

        • My mother thought it was ridiculous when Labour brought this in, since so many pensioners didn’t need it. Now that a Labour government is taking it away she’s really miffed. She’s still well off and not in need. The common thread here is the party behind these actions, one that she sees as a recurring threat to the nation, although she liked Blair. It think Starmer has made the right move here. The Tories had similar ideas. Starmer knows he had to do this now while he could get away with it. Hit the ground running. Taxes on the rich have been shown to be ineffective as well.

  9. I didn’t vote Labour but I wish them well and I’m so happy the Tories have gone. Anyone who thought they would come in and open the taps to public services with no money wasn’t listening during the election. I think Reeves is doing the right things and I hope she has a fuller plan in the budget. For example, the winter fuel allowance was a political fudge and many people don’t need it – quite possibly more than those on income supplement but not all. It should be better targeted which I hope she’ll do.

    As for the freebies, I find it incredible that he can’t see this is not ok. Buy your own tickets/clothes or do without, like the rest of us. *Shakes head*

    • The thing that disappoints me most is that they don’t seem to have a reform action plan. Everything has been a mess for years and the country is well known to be broke. What are they going to do to fix the problems they have been aware of for a long time? They have told the NHS it has to reform but the Darzi report says nothing new. Are they going to do anything with the school curriculum, the exam system, universities? What are they going to do with the benefits system? Etc…

      • I’m hoping they have a plan but are being cautious until they’ve found all the land mines the Tories left. But they might just be incompetent. We’ll knew by the end of October I reckon.

  10. Yeah, disappointed. I get the whole thing of being prepared to be disliked, and actually stopping the winter fuel payment to rich people who don’t need it while the state pension rises so less well off people get the same amount by other means, is a pretty good idea. But the media are going to pounce on things like that and Starmer’ s team ought to have known,

    • I don’t think the current Labour leadership care what the media have to say about them any more. They’ve cottoned onto the fact that the general public don’t trust The Media any more than they trust The Politicians.
      Joe and Joan Public are probably rightly annoyed by the revelations of Freebiegate, as I’m henceforth going to call it, but despite that they’re still glad to see the backs of the previous shower of shit.

        • Two interesting fact-lets that I discovered today.
          1) Approximately 27% of UK pensioners have estates worth more than a million quid.
          2) More pensioners seem to be in favour of this government now than when they won the election.
          Both of those cast a slightly different light on Labour’s decision to restrict access to the Winter Fuel Payment.

          One fact that doesn’t surprise me is that Keir Starmer’s personal popularity is a lot less now than it was at the time of the election.

  11. I remember being so happy when Blair became PM. First thing he did (more or less) was make everybody responsible financially for their own further education. Maybe the old system was unsustainable, but saddling young people with huge debts is, I think, the wrong thing to do. Not even Thatcher got into that

    • What made it worse was that the quality and value of a UK uni education had by then started and would continue to plummet.

      Thank goodness Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and the Lib Dems stood by their campaign promise and put an end to the fees malarkey when they went into coalition with Cameron

    • Me too…bliss was it in that dawn etc. Some workmates and I were chucked out of Embankment Gardens by a jobsworth for celebrating with a bottle of champagne – ‘ere, you can’t do that ‘ere…

      My son was 18 in 1997 and my daughter was 15, so born at the right time 🙁 I must ask them if they’ve paid off their student loans – I have no idea, I realise.

      • Only people who’ve done really, really well out of their University education have paid off their Student Loans, the rest are either in the process of paying them off in dribs and drabs for the rest of their working lives or they have effectively had them written-off.

        • I know several friends who have children that simply f*cked off to distant climes with no intention of ever paying back more than a smidgen of their so-called debt, the tiny amount they could not avoid stumping for while getting their tickets and accomodation sorted for when they got wherever they were off to. I’d have done the same.

  12. It’s early early days but I fear this Clothes/football Box business is going to reinforce the voters’ impression that “all mainstream politicians are the same” and make them look anew at the charms of Reform.
    Yesterday I stumbled across a TV interview with the despicable Farage and, oh God no, he actually came across quite well …no, no, I can’t go on.

  13. The problem with accepting gifts is whether they then lead to preferential treatment for the donor – this is why all these things have to be declared so it is transparent, which is what apparently has happened and led to all this faux outrage. It makes me laugh to see the Daily Fail frothing at the mouth after the corruption of the last lot, but they are seizing on anything.

    Are we saying that because someone is wealthy and can afford anything, then no one can give them a present? Will Starmer have to tell us what Santa brings him..?

    I saw this the other day….

    In Westminster, the Conservatives are showing a sensitivity to impropriety that they lacked in their years in office. Tory MP Andrew Griffith announced that Starmer’s behaviour in accepting £19,000 in clothing and glasses “beggars belief”.
    But image matters in a leading politician. If anything, they should spend more on it. Anyone who doubts the value of a makeover should look at Jeremy Corbyn, who between 2015 and 2017 underwent a transformation. There was a haircut, a beard trim, and a lot of better suits, all adding up to take him from “Lunatic Geography Teacher” to, well, “Cool Geography Teacher”.
    And let’s have a quick look at a man that Griffith upholds as an ideal prime minister, the only-actually-convicted-of-one-crime Boris Johnson. Between November 2018 and May 2019, Johnson accepted donations totalling £212,000. In the following three months, running for his party’s leadership, he accepted £950,000, not including £12,000 that Brown’s Hotel spent on hosting his victory party. (It is possible that discreet central London hotels with multiple exits regard Johnson as a valuable customer.) At the time, Griffith found his belief in all this so unbeggared that he accepted a job from the man. But in fairness, there was, from the look of Johnson, no evidence that any of the money was spent on clothes.

    • There’s a real case that our pols should be paid far more than they are and have to decline payment for side earners such as Newspaper articles, etc.

      Given the Arse’s long tradition of loony fans (O Bin Laden , J Lyndon, J Corbyn, etc), one can see why Keyore might need extra security at the Emirates

      That said, he could do himself a lot of good if he opened up his free corporate box and shared it with deserving individuals (not Lord Alli obvs) each time he used it.

    • Yes, why not have to declare it if Santa gives you on-demand use of a Rolls Royce and a free month’s holiday in Antigua.
      The threshold for gifts that MPs must declare is currently too high. It should be set at what a person on basic state benefits receives every week, IMO.
      If you were to buy a decent suit in your local M&S it would cost you somewhere around £300. A designer suit such as what Keir Starmer has been gifted with is going to cost you several multiples of that.

  14. Especially risible defence from one Starmer apologist in today’s Times, that “those from a working class background” as SKS claims to be (his dad was apparently a toolmaker ~ who knew?) are more self conscious about their appearance and need help looking their best.

    No more effective as a justification than the “look at the last lot” defence cited several times above.

    Problem is voters did “look at the last lot” and voted from Labour because they were promised something better.

    Took him less than 80 days to lose trust it had taken them five years to earn.

    Going to be very hard to win that trust back

  15. Well, the latest is that the PM will no longer accept donations for clothes, according to the BBC.

    In the same article it is reported that Angela Rayner received a £3550 donation to ““to support me in my capacity as deputy leader of the Labour party” which was for clothing.

    Poor. Very poor.

  17. It’s not just the fact that they don’t even consider that accepting freebies from businesses (who, let’s face it, aren’t giving stuff to them out of the goodness of their hearts – if they did they’d be giving away stuff to homeless people too – is wrong, it’s the entitlement.

    Tory politicians digging at them over it are frankly laughable, given Boris Johnson’s acceptance of freebies just a few years ago, but it must still be really fucking annoying for those voters who struggle to clothe themselves and their kids on minimum wage.

    • I don’t think a Tory (or any other) government would have reacted differently. Civil disorder of that kind will always be stamped down upon.
      Predictable criticism, yes, but they should know better than to leave themselves open to it and in any case blithely accepting freebies because you’re the ones that are in charge now is just fucking wrong.
      There’s a whole scale of difference between accepting a free cup of coffee or a breakfast in a café and getting free suits and frocks for the missus from a clothing company.

      • I think a Tory government would probably have acted differently, given the noises they make re asylum seekers and also their vulnerability to Farage’s Poundstore Poujadists.

        • If it was individuals attacking asylum-seeker hotels you’d get Tory & Reform pols making excuses for them, but mobs attacking police and looting shops?
          Never.

  19. It doesn’t really matter whether the media have the knives out or the Tories are worse. If you’re telling the public to prepare for (more) hardship you should avoid the appearance that you’re personally having a lovely time. Just ease up on the perks for a bit.

    It’s not a disaster, but it should be a wake up call. Really poor optics.

  20. It’s all about the optics and, at the moment, they are pretty poor.

    No politician has blatantly broken any rules over the gifting of clothing and accessories. But to give the man responsible for these donations access to the Treasury, as Lord Alli was, just looks bad. And how often did Angela Rayner lambast the Tories for just such issues?

    On the winter fuel allowance, which I will lose and am entirely happy to do so, there should have been some corresponding announcement on the two-child benefit cap. This would have established a clear link between pensioners losing benefits and some greater good. The two-child cap has to go and it inevitably will (or this will be a one-term Labour government). But why does nobody say this? Why all the dancing around the issue?

    And why were the pensioners the first to face Reeves’ cuts? Yes, the fuel allowance for many pensioners was unnecessary. But why not save that cut until after announcements had been made on increased taxes for the wealthy, taxes on multinationals, taxes on the energy companies? It all seems very poorly thought-out.

    • It’s the old political ploy that many new governments have used in the past.
      That of getting the unpopular stuff out of the way first and hoping that the other stuff that you do later will make you popular again.
      It often works and they know that.

    • It’s this lack of thinking that disturbs me. I expected a logical sequence of announcements and changes that confirmed they had spent their years of preparation usefully. Instead, it feels more-of-the-same mess.

        • I expected to see some balls rolling.

          Are they putting together a cross party group to ‘solve’ social care? What kind of reform are they talking about in the NHS? What are they going to do with education? How do they intend to rehabilitate more criminals? Are they going to process asylum seekers quickly so they aren’t stuck in hotels unable to work?

          It feels as if we are in a paused state until the budget next month.

          • I suspect they’re doing the pre-Budget audit, currently.
            Counting the crockery and finding out what’s been broken and hidden from sight in the backs of cupboards at the Treasury.
            As people have said, it’s pretty early days and they are reluctant to make rash promises.

  21. What I don’t understand about these scandals when they arise, as they always do regardless of the party, is that it is so easy *not* to do the things that lead to trouble.

    Nobody makes MPs take these freebies, and surely none of them are in such dire straits that they need a massive handout for clothes. Yet still they say thanks very much and carrying on freeloading until somebody says it might look bad. Is Starmer so out of touch that he really thought “Accepting thousands of pounds for clothes and glasses? Yes, *everybody* will agree that’s perfectly acceptable”?

    I’m such an old cynic that I didn’t have high hopes of a new Labour government being drastically different from or better than the Tories when it comes to such things, but it would have been a breath of fresh air if they could have managed at least a couple of months in power before their first scandal.

    After so many years in opposition, when surely they’ve had enough time to come up with some firm, detailed policies to fix the country, it’s a shame that some of Labour’s top names have left themselves so open to criticism rather than praise, and in-fighting rather than putting those policies into effect.

    • A few weeks ago, after watching Rachel Reeves deliver one of her grim prognoses, I wondered what it must be like to be in her shoes. Having thought about it a little, I concluded that surely after telling the public they were once more going to be asked to do without you’d go straight back to your office and tell your staff to do away with any non-essential perks. Particularly given what you’ve just replaced. It just seems like absolutely basic leadership.

      I’m still hopeful that this will be an effective government, and I agree with others above that this isn’t a huge deal. But it is poor, and – as you say – it would have been so simple to avoid. That’s the frustration.

  22. I fear for the future if this country and most others tbh. The division and hatred which now just seems to be the accepted way of how things work ‘ I’m right you’re wrong’. Labour have been in for a a few months , have inherited a 14 year pile of shite and now being criticised about what they wear – it’s not like he’s robbing pensioners to pay for them. I agree the optics aren’t great but let’s have some perspective – the doctors strike has been ended and the train workers. There will be mistakes but if the worst of it is wearing a pair of designer sunglasses I reckon I can live with that IF ( and it’s a big if) labour can bring about some significant improvement but give them a bit of time !

  23. Excellent Nick Newman cartoon in the SunsetTimes of Free Gear Keir being booked into the Honeymoon’s Over suite at the Liverpool hotel where he’ll be staying during the Labour Party conference

  24. I’ve let his speech sink in a little. It started slowly but ended up being quite rousing. I agree those rioters were a bunch of racist fascists *punches air*. Yea! Bring back sausages! And veterans won’t be homeless. However, I can expect a pylon in my backyard and I have to give them time to build foundations. Normally, foundations indicate what kind of building is being constructed. I’m none the wiser. Are we aiming for a bungalow, a two up two down, a detached, a block of flats, a skyscraper?

  25. Repeat of The Project Peter Kosminsky and Leigh Jackson’s excellent 2002 drama about the rise of New Labour on BBC iplayer for anyone who’s interested in UK politics and not seen it.

    While inevitably going to come off second best when compared to Peter Flannery’s classic Our Friends in the North, it’s well worth watching – the usual top notch performance from Matthew McFadden being an especial highlight.

  26. We know the Tories are cnuts. We don’t like it when someone pretends to not be one but turns out just as bad. As ever, it’s the hope that kills you. The problem is Labour affect to be moral, for Joe Ordinary, right-on, and are sentimentally self-righteous (nobody now believes a Tory who tries this). But here we go, Labour now shown to be as self-serving, hypocritical, and largeing-it as David Mellor on a fact-finding mission to Pattaya. This is Labour’s “duck house” moment, and frankly, about time too. I can do without their insincerity, as it only reminds me of the last lot. It’s an act of organisational genius to lose so much credibility in such a short time since the election, but might say something about the quality of folk who are in politics these days. Quite how we move forward, I don’t know. Not to the new parties, that’s for sure. Maybe the Dim Lebs?

  28. Yesterday the Left and Right fantatics were united on the ‘You shouldn’t use someone else’s flat’ scandal, but today’s ‘Queer Starmer’ attack will severely test the Alliance of Outrage. If those pouty Corbynists have any consistency at all, they will defend his right to privacy over his sexuality, and they’re really really going to hate having to do that.

    • I can’t help but feel the latest sniggering attacks stem from ‘What else rhymes with Keir?’ We’ve had beer, two-tier and so on. It’s all a bit ‘Welease Wodewick!’ from the right wing tabloids.

      None of it should stick with anyone with any sense, and by throwing so much triviality at him so soon the shrieking halfwits may exhaust their supply of mock outrage before too long.

  29. Leaving aside the specifics, there’s a very simple, easy to implement solution to the seemingly recalcitrant problem of politicians accepting gifts; adopt the same rules that apply to the rest of the public sector.

    When I was civil servant we were not allowed to accept any gifts. Obviously there were sensible exceptions – if you were visiting a farm , say, and they put on lunch, it would be rude to refuse. But no alcohol.

    Likewise, a foreign delegation would present some national trinket which would be grateful accepted and feature in a photo. Any bottles of alcohol would end up in the Christmas raffle.

    But basically absolutely no expensive personal gifts or tickets to events etc. It remains a mystery to me why the same standard doesn’t apply to MPs, however it could be applied immediately – I can’t see any MP opposing it at the moment.

    • Good idea.

      The sad thing is that so many of our leaders both past and present are clearly incapable of working out such basic codes of practice by themselves

      • The UK’s (unwritten) constitution recognises three independent power bases:-

        Parliament,
        The Executive  (that is Government Ministers and Civil Servants)
        ,The Judiciary

        Judges, magistrates and those employed by Parliament are thus not civil servants. Nor are the police, the armed forces, and those employed in the National Health Service and by Local Authorities.

        Parliament is quite separate from the Crown so those who are employed by Parliament are not civil servants.

        Some are certainly not civil and quite a few don’t see themselves as servants.

        • The UK does have a written constitution. Here’s a good description from UCL’s Constitution Unit.

          “The UK is often said to have an ‘unwritten’ constitution, but this is not strictly correct; it is largely written, but in different documents. It has never been codified; brought together in a single document.”

          Part of my course at University was on this, and the lecturer said this at the start, but said he knew he was fighting a losing battle on this point. At that time, the comparison was usually made with the American constitution in particular, which was thought to be robust because it was codified. Not sure if that is still a widespread view.

        • Ok. Who do MPs serve then? Starmer is very keen to use the term. If they are servants to the public, should they not operate under the same rules as civil servants (and other public servants).

          The Nolan Principles are not exactly clear on accepting gifts but it is probably ok if you declare them honestly and don’t allow the donation to affect your decision making. As if.

  30. Sort of related, but not really, is the emergence of Glam Rock in the early 70s when normally un-glam acts were advised by accountants to wear outlandish clothing to ensure that the cost of the clobber is definitely viewed by tax officials as an expense of the business and not clothing that they would normally wear i.e. taxable.

    Politicians could take a leaf out of Glam Rock’s book by wearing massive sunglasses and capes when presenting policy.

  32. Bit of a wake-up call for the Keir Leader who really should
    have known better than to stick his snout in a trough whose
    Previous users he’d denounced

    Given the alternatives, let’s hope he listens and puts this
    sorry saga to bed.

  36. The offer and acceptance of these ‘gifts’ by the Labour leadership is of course questionable. I am inclined to think it was viewed by them as of little more than presentational value, however stupid their decision.
    I think the more important and troubling matter is what do the benefactors hope to gain and why are their interests and ambitions not being questioned?

  38. Tomorrow’s Times has a great quote from an unnamed Labour MP on the Badenoch vs Jenrick face off for Tory leader:

    “I wonder if we’ll have to declare this as a gift.”

  39. @ernietothecentreoftheearth

    https://x.com/RuthCadbury/status/1840334552062968145?t=LARE8XfgGYnWHpeYXRkrZA&s=19

    Never a good idea to poke a rabid animal with a stick – especially when the spittle-flecked beast in question could well end up running your country’s historically and strategically most important ally.

    It’s not as if there weren’t any precedents as to how counter-productive such efforts are – the undecided voters of Clark County’s response to the Guardian’s arrogant letter writing campaign of the 2004 Presidential Election being an excellent example:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/18/uselections2004.usa2 attempt to

    Times columnist (and failed Lib Dem candidate in July’s election), Ed Lucas recounts his experience of trying to sway undecided Pennsylvania voters KH’s way in this am’s paper:

    “The voters I had been sent to talk to were, alarmingly, registered independents, notionally open to persuasion. Every one of them was voting for Trump, either because his message broadly matched their pious, patriotic principles, or because they found Harris unconvincing: a weak candidate with a weak record and weak messages, wildly over-promoted, boosted by a fawning liberal media and a sinister, duplicitous, left-wing Democratic political machine. Highlighting Trump’s reprehensibility works poorly with these voters; it implies they are wicked for even considering him.”

    While not a problem of FGK’s making, it is going to cause him huge problems if Orangey gets elected on Nov 6th.

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