Keir Starmer defends determination at hand No10 cross to Labour donor

Sir Keir Starmer vowed to restore ‘honesty and integrity’ to politics today – as he defended handing a No10 pass to a top labour donor and filling Civil Service jobs with party officials.

The Prime Minister was questioned over access given to Lord Alli after he stumped up £18,000 to fund clothes and spectacles for the Labour leader in the run-up to July’s election.

The row has been branded ‘passes for glasses’, with Tory calls for a full probe into what the peer’s role was. 

Sir Keir has also come under pressure over alleged cronyism after Labour officials were given roles that are usually non-political.

Mitchell Burns-Jackson, who previously worked for both Sir Keir Starmer and his Chief of Staff Sue Gray, has been given a key role inside No 10 as Ms Gray’s executive assistant.

Annie-Rose Peterman, who worked for Sir Keir and Emily Thornberry in opposition, has also reportedly replaced a civil servant as the Prime Minister’s diary manager.

But in a speech outside No10 today, The PM lashed out at the Tory criticism, saying it came from ‘the very people that dragged our country down in the first place’. 

‘We are going to fix the foundations, we have got to do it at speed and I am determined to have the right people in the right places to allow us to get on with that job,’ he said after being quizzed by reporters.

‘I am enormously aware how big a task this is and how we have to move at pace, and that is why we are getting the best people into the best jobs

‘But I am not going to take lectures on this from the people who dragged our country so far down in the last few years.’

He insisted that Lord Alli, the media mogul and former Asos chairman ‘had a pass for a short time’ as he helped the new government transition to power, a role that had since ended.

The PM was last night under mounting pressure to reveal if he or his powerful aide Sue Gray approved a controversial Downing Street security pass for a major Labour donor.

There were calls for an inquiry into Labour cronyism as No 10 refused to say who signed off the highly unusual arrangement for Lord Alli. He gave the Prime Minister almost £20,000 for new clothes and spectacles among £500,000 of donations to the party over the years, to be given unfettered access to the heart of government.

But there is growing suspicion that it may have been authorised by chief of staff Ms Gray, who is known to be close to the millionaire TV mogul and whose MP son received a £10,000 donation from him towards his election campaign.

There will also be attempts to raise it in Parliament when MPs return from the summer recess next week, with the possibility of a select committee looking into the ‘passes for glasses’ allegations, as well as a string of appointments of Labour donors and staffers to senior civil service roles that have also been linked to Ms Gray.

Shadow paymaster general John Glen told the Mail last night: ‘Once again, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff is front and centre of this sleaze scandal.

‘With thousands of pounds donated to her son by the man then given a security pass to the building she oversees, Sue Gray has serious questions to answer.

‘Labour need to urgently clarify what her role was in approving this pass.

‘Lord Alli is a very respected figure – it is unfortunate he has been put in this embarrassing position.’

Mr Glen has written to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case asking who authorised the pass for Lord Alli, when it was issued and if any other donors have had one.

Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly said last night: ‘The questions are mounting for Labour. In opposition they talked about integrity and service but five minutes in Government and they’re already stacking the civil service with their supporters and mates, and giving donors all-access passes to No 10.’

Former No 10 aide Henry Newman said: ‘Labour’s cronyism row is growing by the day. Downing Street must come clean about whether civil servants approved this pass, or whether it was requested by special advisers – and why?’

Dame Jackie Doyle-Price, who was chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee until the election, raised the prospect of MPs investigating the matter.

She said: ‘Governments need to be able to make appointments from outside Whitehall but there needs to be clear process to maintain the integrity and independence of the Whitehall machine.’

Former sleaze watchdog Sir Alistair Graham told the Mail: ‘Given the Prime Minister’s expressed view that they would have the highest possible standards, it doesn’t look like the best possible start.’ The ex-chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, who encountered Ms Gray when she was a civil servant, said he had not heard of party donors being given Downing Street passes.

He added: ‘I’m just surprised somebody didn’t say… that to be seen to be giving such a pass to a donor was not a sensible move.’

Ex-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the Government should reveal why Lord Alli needed a security pass.

‘You can’t, simply just because people give the party money, allow them to have access to a sensitive office space where things are confidential, where confidential conversations are happening.’

Asked who approved Lord Alli’s pass, No 10 declined to answer. Sources have insisted the party’s chief general election fundraiser was given only a temporary pass in July in order to attend political meetings and has since returned it.

He did not have a formal role in the new administration and civil servants were not present at meetings with him or at a party he reportedly helped organise in the No 10 garden.

After the story broke on Sunday, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden claimed it was not unusual for people to have passes in order to attend political meetings in Downing Street.

Lord Alli himself has not commented.The concierge at the Covent Garden building where he lives in an £18.5million duplex penthouse said he was ‘away for a month’. There was no answer ten minutes’ walk away at a five-storey Georgian house in Soho which the TV tycoon bought for £4million in 2020.

Junior minister Sir Chris Bryant jumped to Lord Alli’s defence. He wrote on Twitter/X: ‘Waheed has gone way beyond the call of duty for no other reward than supporting his friends and trying to secure a party and a government we can all be proud of.’