Sir Keir Starmer will still allow Ministers to nab tonnes of freebies – they just need to declare them once a month instead of quarterly under a Government revamp. The so-called ‘King of the Cadgers’ is keen to sweep the grubby donor scandal under the carpet and is looking to tweak the current gifting system for politicians.
Under revised rules he has still given the nod to top Westminster staff accepting expensive hospitality tickets, such as his jolly at Taylor Swift’s sold out concert. But well-off ministers must tell us folk about them more often so we don’t get annoyed. The Government wants to make Ministers’ rules the same as MPs, who must declare interests within 28 days.
(Image: PA)
The PM hopes that new rules which dictate ministers must also take into account ‘public perception’ of a freebie before accepting it will silence critics. An updated ministerial code will instruct Whitehall and other senior staff to be mindful of our expectations when bagging gifts like, for example, free Arsenal tickets.
Ministers must justify any handouts but are still very much okay to take them. Starmer has accepted more than £100,000 worth of freebies, which is more than any other MP since the 2019 general election. He received £32,000 worth of suits paid for by Lord Alli, the Labour peer and donor, who also gave £6,134 worth of clothes to his wife Victoria.
MPs on both sides have benefitted from rich donors, with 141 Tories receiving £359,891 in free gifts including toff pursuits such as helicopter rides and thousands of pounds of clay-pigeon shoots. In the same period, from September 2023 to August this year, 118 Labour MPs accepted £298,151 of handouts. Football tickets and stadium gigs were the most popular freebies.
Sir Keir Starmer defended accepting corporate hospitality from Premier League club Arsenal, claiming it was a security risk to use his normal crowd seat as PM. A Downing Street spokesperson confirmed that an updated Ministerial Code published by the Prime Minister will include “a new set of principles on gifts and hospitality”.
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