Keir Starmer repays gig cash (but keeps suits and specs)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repaid £6000 worth of hospitality and gifts he received since entering No 10 but kept more than £40,000 worth of suits, dresses and football tickets.

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Picture: AFP

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repaid £6000 ($11,580) worth of hospitality and gifts he received since entering No 10 but kept more than £40,000 worth of suits for himself, dresses for his wife and football tickets.

Sir Keir said he would cover the cost of six tickets to see Taylor Swift, worth £398, and four tickets to Doncaster races, including hospitality, worth £1939. He also repaid £839 for a clothing rental agreement with Edeline Lee, the designer whose clothes his wife, Victoria, wore to London Fashion Week and the Labour Party conference, and an hour of hair and make-up services.

However, he will keep £32,200 worth of suits paid for by Wahed Alli, a Labour donor, and glasses costing £2485 given by the peer. Lady Starmer will keep £6134 worth of dresses paid for by Lord Alli.

Sir Keir also said he would continue to accept soccer tickets. His latest declaration includes £920 for two tickets to see Arsenal, the club he supports, play Tottenham Hotspur last month and £1000 to watch Arsenal in August. Sir Keir has said that although he has a season ticket, it is no longer safe for him to sit in the stands and the club has said it will find seats in the directors’ box for him and his son “whenever practicable”.

The Prime Minister said that paying for the hospitality and gifts he received was the “right thing to do” pending the publication of a new “set of principles” on gifts and hospitality.

However, he has not asked his cabinet to take the same approach. Foreign Secretary David Lammy accepted £2300 worth of hospitality to watch Tottenham play last month, and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner accepted an £836 trip to a DJ booth at a nightclub in Ibiza, where she was filmed partying over the northern summer.

Sir Keir said: “We came in as a government of change. We are now going to bring forward principles for donations because, until now, politicians have used their best individual judgment on a case-by-case basis. I think we need some principles of general application. So I took the decision, until the principles are in place, it was right for me to make those repayments.”

In August, The Sunday Times reported that Lord Alli, who led Labour’s fundraising for the general election, had a pass to No 10 shortly after the election. Government sources said that it had been given to him only temporarily and handed back several weeks before.

Questions about donations intensified after it emerged that Lord Alli was under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog. The Lords commissioners said they were looking at an “alleged non-registration of interests” by Alli, a former media executive.

The Times understands that the investigation concerns the category in which a charity interest was registered by the peer. It is not considered to concern his gifts to Starmer. Nor does it concern allegations that he declared his directorship at Mac (BVI) Limited, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands, after being contacted by OpenDemocracy last month.

The Tory leadership candidates accepted tens of thousands in donations, including almost £135,000 registered by Robert Jenrick since August. In his declarations was another £25,000 from Spott Fitness, following transparency concerns over £75,000 previously given to him via the company. Phillip Ullmann, a businessman, named himself as the source of the funds this week. Mr Jenrick has said the donations were “perfectly legal and valid”.

Tom Tugendhat declared £152,000 worth of donations, James Cleverly £89,000, and Kemi Badenoch £40,000.

THE TIMES