PM is determine of enjoyable in scarecrow pageant and depicted made from instruments
Sir Keir Starmer was the figure of fun at the UK’s biggest scarecrow festival as villagers crafted a life-like effigy of Prime Minister in a suit stuffed with Premier League tickets.
Villagers at the Belbroughton Scarecrow Festival dressed the model with glasses in a nod to the intense scrutiny of Sir Keir and his wife Victoria for accepting donations.
Donning Sir Keir’s signature blue suit and burgundy tie, the competition entry depicts the PM with a rake head and holding a trowel and shovel in his hands, complete with a premier league ticket in his upper pocket.
The entry also contained a sign reading: ‘My dad was a toolmaker. I am a tool… maker’s son’ – a nod to one of Sir Keir’s election slogans. The festival’s theme this year was ‘Who Said That’.
Sir Keir was found to have declared more freebies than any other MP, having accepted gifts, benefits and hospitality topping £100,000 since December 2019.
Sir Keir Starmer was depicted made of tools and with Premier League tickets in his pocket at the country’s largest Scarecrow competition, in a nod to his election
Sir Keir Starmer pictured at a visit to PsiQuantum in Daresbury, Cheshire on Sunday
Sir Keir at the Labour conference. The PM has made several references to his late father’s profession
Donations from Labour life peer Lord Waheed Alli included clothes, Arsenal matches and a Taylor Swift concert.
Sir Keir has regularly mentioned his late father’s profession and has made references to toolmaking at previous conference speeches, in interviews and in campaign material.
On his official website, under the heading ‘My Childhood’, the Prime Minister says ‘My dad worked as a toolmaker in a factory, and my mum was a nurse for the NHS’.
In a party election broadcast in April, Sir Keir described his father as being ‘devoted to his trade’.
And in a promotional Facebook video shared by the Labour Party in January 2023, Sir Keir said: ‘My Dad was a toolmaker. He worked in a factory all his life.’
The PM also made similar references during his keynote speech at last year’s Labour conference and at his manifesto launch in June.
The PM referred to his father being a toolmaker during his manifesto launch in June
A Simon Cowell effigy at the festival, with the quote ‘I didn’t like it… I loved it!’
Another entry parodied American country singer Dolly Parton
Children marvel at a Jaws-themed scarecrow at Belbroughton Scarecrow Festival
A scarecrow dedicated to astronaut Neil ‘Arm Straw’ Armstrong, with a parody quote ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for scarecrows’
Rodney Starmer, known as Rod, spent much of his time looking after Sir Keir’s sick mother. He died in 2018, two years before his son would become Labour leader.
The Prime Minister told Sky News’ Sophie Ridge in March that he regretted not having a closer relationship with his father.
Elsewhere at the the scarecrow festival was an effigy of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator sporting a blowup machine gun.
The festival sees locals creating their favourite pop-culture figures out of straw, attracting over 30,000 spectators a year.
A Dorothy-themed scarecrow depicting the Wizard of Oz on a ‘yellow brick road’ mat
Spanish waiter Manuel from Fawlty Towers, dubbed ‘Strawlty Towers’ for the entry
An entry featuring scarecrows of Marie Curie, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein
A Harry Potter-themed entry at the festival including a dementor and a stag
An ‘Only Folls and Horses’ scarecrow withthe quote ‘he who dares wins Rodney’
A scarecrow dressed as director Arnold Schwarzenegger at the festival
Harry Potter fans posed with the young wizard as he cast his expecto patronum charm to create his ghostly stag.
Meanwhile, children reacted to a giant straw shark leaping out of the garden of one crafty neighbour’s home.
Parodies of Dolly Parton, former PM Winston Churchill and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein were also spotted around the village.
Founded by children’s author Steve Haywood in 1996, the Belbroughton Scarecrow festival is held every September.
