Even Keir Starmer’s freeloading can’t dent huge Labour victory in UK general election

Keir Starmer enjoyed scores of football tickets and a freebie designer wardrobe but the freeloading hasn’t changed minds, with Labour expected to romp home in tomorrow’s general election.

Labour Leader, Sir Keir Starmer campaigning at Hitchin Town Football Club. Photo: Getty Images

New revelations that Sir Keir Starmer indulged in extensive freeloading may have dented his popularity in the closing stages of the British general election campaign, but the Labour Party is still expected to win handsomely in tomorrow’s vote.

Starmer was found to have accepted £76,000 (A$145,000) in hospitality, clothes, eyeglasses and other gifts from British donors during the last parliament, including 20 tickets to sought- after clashes involving his favourite football team Arsenal. He also accepted free tickets to Adele and Cold Play concerts, the Financial Times reported.

Starmer justified accepting the tickets saying he needed to watch the away games of his favourite team from a corporate box to keep his security team happy.

“Quite a lot of that was Arsenal hospitality and particularly away games, where you can appreciate my desire to go in the stands is not always met with approval by the security teams around me, which means that I’m in corporate hospitality if I want to see the game,” he explained.

But the largesse also included free designer “work clothes” from Labour peer and former ASOS chairman Lord Waheed Alli, and expensive eye wear totalling as much as £18,000 (A$35,000).

It appears none of the criticism about the tickets and goods has cut through to voters fed up with Tory ineptitude.

Starmer has also been under attack for preparing to be a “part time prime minister,” after insisting he would keep his Friday evenings free after 6pm but the polls have remained stubbornly consistent in showing a large Labour victory.

“I would have thought to anybody it’s blindingly obvious that a Friday night is quite important in some religions and faiths,” Starmer, 61, said.

“To be perfectly honest, it’s also time that we want to spend as a family, when it’s laughably pathetic that anybody is making an issue of me saying I’m going to try and continue to make time for my wife and kids, of course I am. I suggest it’s a good thing for everyone else to do too. Not with my wife.”

The latest polls show a small narrowing of the Labour Party lead from 20 points to 19 points, indicating that Thursday’s ballot will be catastrophic for the Conservative Party. In 1906 the Tories won just 156 seats. That historic record is under real threat with analysts from Electoral Calculus predicting the Tories could win as few as 61 seats, or as many as 153 seats, with even prime minister Rishi Sunak being vulnerable. They say Labour could win 470 to 510 seats.

A survey of 20,000 voters which was released on Tuesday put Labour on 41 per cent and the Tories on 22 per cent said The Redfield and Wilton Strategies, which asked 20,000 people for their opinion. The pollsters said support for Reform UK had stalled at 16 per cent, while the Liberal Democrats have 10 per cent support, the Greens on six per cent and the Scottish National Party on three per cent.

The last days of a largely tepid and uninspiring six week snap campaign and marked by the prime minister’s misjudgment about leaving D Day commemorations early, has seen all parties encouraging people to get out and vote for voting is not compulsory.

The Tories fear Labour will be handed a “super majority” if their supporters choose not to vote and have warned of tax rises under Labour. Meanwhile Labour officials are worried their supporters may believe the result is a fait accompli.

Starmer told Labour campaigners in Staffordshire on Tuesday that there are still many, many undecided voters.

“Don’t believe the polls, they don’t predict the future. It’s constituencies like this (held by the Tories with a 20,000 majority) that will make the difference,” he said.

In the last days there has been concerns about postal votes arriving in time, as well as violence towards minor party candidates. Tensions about cost of living, job security, migration and the Gaza-Israel divisions have surrounded political candidates, including attacks on some candidates.

Wajad Burkey, who is standing for George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain in Sutton Coldfield, said his son and two others were canvassing Sunday evening when eight men attacked them with a machete and baseball bats, hospitalising his son with a head injury.

“I have suspended my campaign as I am fearful, frankly, for my life,” Mr Burkey said.

Reform UK has also accused the British police of total failure after an attack on their candidate Steve Rubidge who was robbed, punched and kicked two weeks ago. The party said it had provided the police with photos of the suspects but nothing has happened.

Police in Northumbria told another Reform candidate Janice Richardson to stop handing out leaflets and to “go home” and not to “poke the bear” because of safety fears from a nearby pro-Palestine rally.