Clothes make the man, they say. In Keir Starmer’s case, it seems to have disappeared. After a difficult week for the Prime Minister, it emerged on Friday that more than £16,000 of designer clobber donated by Labor colleague Waheed Alli had been wrongly declared as money for Starmer’s personal office.
Revelations came in The Guardian, Labor’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 Labor are furious that the man they thought would be the antidote to the Tory ills has been caught with his snout in the trough.
He couldn’t believe how Starmer had revealed himself, or why he had allowed this catastrophic goal. His peevish, dismissive response to the whole debacle didn’t help either.
Old Tory friends are in disbelief, euphoria and a deep sense of frustration because of the Starmer majority, there is nothing they can do about it.
After a difficult week for the Prime Minister, it emerged on Friday that more than £16,000 of designer clobber donated by Labor friend Waheed Alli had been wrongly declared as money for Keir Starmer’s private office.
It’s like some surreal satire on socialism’s double standards. Comparisons to George Orwell’s Animal Farm are inevitable, until Chapter VI, when Napoleon and his fellow pigs move into the farmhouse. Or do I mean the £18 million penthouse in Covent Garden owned by Lord Alli, or – in the case of Angela Rayner – the Labor peer’s £2million apartment in New York?
Too close to the bone? Probably. I believe it is only a matter of time before Comrade Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, has this impertinent tome removed from the national curriculum.
Certainly Starmer or other members of the government who have benefited from Lord Alli’s largesse are not the first politicians to receive gifts. Since 2010, MPs have announced more than £6 million in donations.
The problem is the way Starmer thinks of himself as different. It’s like if someone else (especially a Tory) does it, it’s an outrage, but if it’s him or his family, he doesn’t deserve it because everyone else doesn’t. Deep down he must know how bad this is, hence, I suspect, the whole ‘mistake’.
Filing a donation under the wrong title, neglecting to disclose aspects (such as the wife’s clothes), trying to dress in vain like having designer glasses, but something is necessary; tried to explain that staying at Lord Alli’s was the act of a concerned parent: as if he was ashamed of everything.
So he should be. For Starmer, who never tires of reminiscing about his holier-than-thou, son-of-a-tools credentials, this is hypo-crisy on a grand scale.
Taking large donations for luxury goods and receiving lavish hospitality from the wealthy does not fit the image of a saintly human rights lawyer.
Especially if you exclude pensioners from their £300 annual fuel allowance which can barely afford a football ticket.
Not to mention starting an all-out attack on savers, grafters and wealth-creators. The double standard is amazing.
No wonder Starmer and his team tried to sweep the overwhelming evidence of Alli’s generosity under the carpet. The problem, as Nixon discovered, is that it’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the cover-up.
In fact, Starmer has more freebies than any other major party leader in recent times, worth more than £100,000, all while trying to present himself as a socialist messiah.
Morally, intellectually and above all politically, it will not improve.
Shares in WeightWatchers have plummeted as weight loss jabs threaten the lucrative diet industry. I wonder if that could 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 is out
Life is not all sunshine and rainbows for today’s generation called baby nepo. Take Harper Beckham, age 13. Here she is wearing what appears to be a pink nightie at her mother Victoria’s fashion show in Paris.
I have to say, he seems less than happy about it, and who can blame him? 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 revealing clothes.
Bad boy. Can’t she be allowed to wear jeans and trainers like a normal girl?
Harper Beckham, 13, wore a pink dress at her mother Victoria’s fashion show in Paris.
Three months ago, if you had asked me what I wanted to say at the Conservative Party conference this week, I would have said it again. miserable than the rainy weekend Margate. Now, I’m not sure.
After weeks in the headlines for Labour, the mood, if not upbeat, was far from gloomy. Of course, he has a long way to go to earn the trust of the British people before the next election; but if they choose the right leader, it is possible – can – just can.
Remember a real villain
Are there bad people who often escape justice? Jeffrey Epstein dies in jail, leaving Ghislaine Maxwell to pay for his crimes; now Mohamed Al Fayed, has left behind rape and destruction, get away with it.
While the Met Police state they will ‘fully explore whether anyone else could be prosecuted for any wrongdoing’, let’s not forget who the monster is here.
The fascinating thing about Boris Johnson’s memoirs – serialized in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday – is that his words are brilliant.
A stark contrast to the deadly rhetoric of our current prime minister.
I really enjoyed the description of my ex-husband’s (Michael Gove) reaction when Johnson reminded him, after being diagnosed with Covid, that ‘Pericles died of the plague’. Johnson writes: ‘His spectacle sparkled at the thought, like the penguins in Wallace and Gromit.’
A trick of the light, perhaps. I remember Michael was really worried about Johnson at the time. Still, you know what they say: memories can vary.
A penguin’s web feat
Pesto, the giant baby emperor penguin, born nine months ago at Melbourne’s Sea Life Aquarium, has become a viral superstar due to his enormous size.
The fact that Pesto is not aware of his great dimensions or billions of fans (including the American singer Katy Perry, who visited him) only makes him more impressive. This is exactly what the internet was invented for. Or should have been.
Pesto, a giant baby emperor penguin, born nine months ago at the Melbourne Sea Life Aquarium, has become a viral superstar due to his enormous size.
Three Just Stop Oil supporters threw soup over two Van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery last week, hours after their fellow activists were jailed for doing the same to others. masterpiece.
What did Van Gogh do to him? Why not go to the Tate Modern and throw soup through the Turner Prize entry? Judging from the crowd this year, that would be a big improvement.
