UK’s Starmer Took Further £16,000 in Clothes Gifts from Labour Donor Waheed Alli
Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street via Flickr
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was gifted a further £16,000 in clothes from top Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli it has emerged amid the growing scandal surrounding freebies given to senior members of the government.
Donations to Starmer from Labour peer Waheed Alli, made in two instalments including £10,000 in October last year and another £6,000 in February were initially classified as money “for the private office of the leader of the opposition”, however, they have now been re-categorised as donations for clothing, the Guardian reports.
This comes on top of another £16,000 in clothing donations and £2,485 for glasses to Starmer from Lord Alli, taking the total over £34,000 in freebies given to the leftist leader from the media mogul.
Meanwhile, Starmer also admitted to accepting the equivalent of £20,000 in accommodation from Alli for the Labour leader’s son to study for his GCSE tests during the election campaign.
The donations have raised questions as it has emerged that the Labour donor and life peer had been granted a Downing Street security pass even though he is not a member of the government.
Starmer has declared over £100,000 in personal gifts, including tickets to football matches, and Taylor Swift and Coldplay concert tickets.
Amid the growing scandal, Starmer, as well as top members of his government, including Deputy PM Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have said that they will stop accepting clothing gifts while in power.
They have all maintained that previous gift donations were made legally.
However, there have been demands to investigate the fledgling Labour government over the donations, including from the leftist Scottish National Party (SNP).
SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said that the freebies given to senior Labour politicians need to be “comprehensively investigated” or it will become “inevitable that the damaging drip, drip of revelations will continue to erode public trust”.
Separately, Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe said that he is exploring whether a case can be brought against Starmer and others for potentially having violated the Bribery Act.
“If people accept gifts like this they become bought people,” Lowe argued earlier this week, adding: “I think the whole lot of them are a bunch of pork barreling clowns.”
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