Minister struggles to defend Keir Starmer over his record of accepting freebies – UK politics live

Good morning. The Conservative party may not have provided a great government for Britain, but it was the source of a never-ending supply of scandals, which gave journalists something to write about and provided some confirmation-bias entertainment to people who like that sort of thing. Labour was elected promising a much more ethical approach to government and on the scandal front, so far there has been little to report. At the weekend the Sunday Times gave us “frockgate” (not their term) – the revelation that gifts of clothing to Keir Starmer’s wife had not originally been disclosed in the register of members’ interest. But Starmer said that this was an oversight, that came to light precisely because his staff were double-checking what the rules said, and it has emerged overnight that the Conservative party’s attempt to get the parliamentary commissioner for standards to investigate has failed, because he has said no.

So is this all over? Not quite, while Starmer has been broadly successful in refuting claims that he tried to evade parliament’s disclosure rules, he probably has not won over the jury in the court of public opinion on the question of whether he should have accepted so many freebies in the first place.

In one sense, there is nothing new about this. During the election Financial Times (not normally seen as a Labour-bashing, scandal sheet) ran a report saying that Starmer had “accepted £76,000 worth of entertainment, clothes and similar freebies from UK donors since the 2019 general election”. No one paid much attention. Starmer later said that, because he was a football fan but security reasons meant it was not practical for him to go in the stands, he ended up accepting a lot of tickets for hospitality in the directors’ box. But he did not really explain why he had accepted so many other tickets, and clothes.

Many MPs accept freebies, when you are leader of the opposition many organisations want to invite you to events, and there is nothing that Starmer that has done that is against the rules, or unprecedented for a politician at his rank. But if anyone thinks that makes this a non-story, they should have a word with Angela Eagle, the border security minister, who struggled this morning when asked to explain why Starmer could not just pay for his clothes and tickets himself, like the rest of us.

She was on Times Radio first. Here is an extract from the transcript of her interview with Stig Abell.

Abell: “But let’s boil it down. Why shouldn’t the prime minister, he earns £166,000 a year, why shouldn’t he buy his own glasses?”

Eagle: “Well, why don’t you ask him?”

Abell: “Well, he’s not here. You’re here for the government. I mean, if he comes on here, we might try.”

Eagle: “I am, but I’m afraid I’m not responsible for decisions the prime minister makes.”

Abell: “You’re not, but you have an opinion. Should he not buy his own glasses? You’re wearing a pair of glasses now. You presumably paid for them yourself. I’m wearing a pair of glasses now. I pay for them myself. Why shouldn’t the prime minister?”

Eagle: “Well, the prime minister has had his say on that. And if you next time you interview him, you could ask him yourself. I don’t have an opinion.”

Abell: “Well, I’ll tell you why you might have an opinion. Angela Rayner had an opinion when Boris Johnson was getting money from donors. She tweeted: ‘What right does a man who complains he can’t live on £150,000 a year and ask Tory donors to fund his luxury wallpaper habit, what right does he have to lecture someone trying to survive on £80 a week?’ That’s what Labour attacked Boris Johnson for doing. And now you’ve got someone who has a luxury glasses habit who’s taking money from pensioners. People are going to have an opinion on that, aren’t they?”

Eagle: “OK you’ve had your rant.”

A few minutes later Eagle had to go through this all again with Kay Burley on Sky News. Here is an extract from that exchange.

Burley: “The Daily Mail today is suggesting Sir Keir has accepted at least £76,000 of freebies, including the royal box of Wimbledon hospitality at a Coldplay concert, Arsenal away games with the foreign secretary in tow. The list goes on. How does that align with the son of a toolmaker, man of a people image?”

Eagle: “Well, I think he’s an Arsenal fan. I mean, it takes all sorts, I suppose. [Eagle is from Liverpool.] But we only know about this because these things have been registered as appropriate. I think the prime minister had his say on that yesterday when he was in Italy. [He did, but he did not answer the question.] I’m here in Berlin.”

Burley: “He’s taken £76,000 worth of freebies. He’s going to great lengths to point out to us that he’s a man of the people, and he’s taken £300 off pensioners and taking £76,000 worth of freebies.”

Eagle: “I think it’s important also to remember that, with respect to pensioners, the triple lock is being maintained for the whole parliament, and that means that pensions are going to rise by 2.5%, by earnings or inflation, whichever is the greater … [The Tory economic legacy] means some difficult decisions that none of us wanted to make.”

Burley: “Does that mean the difficult decision of turning down freebies?”

Eagle: “Well, you’ll have to ask him. [We’ve had] an explanation of the Arsenal visit. I’m not sure whether Coldplay is possible to have an explanation.”

After the interview, the Conservative party pointed out that it ended with Eagle unable to defend some of the freebies Starmer had accepted.

Readers with functioning memories will remember that CCHQ was not quite so censorious when Boris Johnson was soliciting freebies and donations on a scale that makes Starmer look frugal.

None of this counts as a big scandal, and arguably it is not a scandal anyway. But it is something that doesn’t look good, and that No 10 could live without. Yesterday Keir Starmer said he would carry on accepting gifts. Perhaps there might be a rethink.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.15am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, give a speech at the UK Energy conference.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.45am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, gives a speech on the climate crisis.

2.30pm: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, gives his keynote speech at the end of the Liberal Democrat conference.

Afternoon: Labour’s national executive committee is meeting where it is expected to appoint Hollie Ridley as the party’s next general secretary.

5pm: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, gives a speech at the RTS London Convention.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.