A government minister has said Sir Keir Starmer accepting more freebies than any other MP “is not important at all”.
Jess Phillips said she was “satisfied” with the prime minister’s explanation it would “cost the taxpayer a fortune” in security if he watched Arsenal from the stands after it emerged he has accepted thousands of pounds worth of free football tickets.
The prime minister has faced criticism after Sky News’ Westminster Accounts project revealed he had received two-and-a-half times more gifts and hospitality than any other MP, totalling £107,145, since December 2019.
He has declared £12,588 in gifts from the Premier League, including numerous tickets for Arsenal matches totalling more than £6,000.
But Ms Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, told Sky News: “I don’t think it’s important at all.”
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
A leak to the BBC revealed Ms Gray, who led the “partygate” inquiry into Boris Johnson’s government, is paid £170,000, which is a higher salary than the prime minister’s £167,000.
However, Ms Phillips denied it means Sir Keir does not have a handle on how things are running inside Number 10.
She said: “All I can say is from my bit of government is that it’s running quite smoothly in that we have been in government for 11 weeks and just even in the bit of work that I work in, we have changed more, put more in train than was done in 10 years [under the Conservatives].”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:49
‘There’s a problem with leaking’
Ms Phillips admitted it “does seem like there is a problem with leaking” but added: “Hasn’t that always been the case?”
Sir Keir has insisted he is “completely in control” when asked why Ms Gray gets paid more than him.
Former Labour MP Harriet Harman, now a peer and co-host of Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, said Ms Gray’s salary is “the rate for the job”.
The baroness said Ms Gray is an “incredibly able person” and added the cabinet secretary earns £200,000 while the person running Manchester City Council earns £220,000.
Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has claimed mass migration and “woke culture” have put England’s national identity at risk.
Mr Jenrick, who remains the favourite to replace Rishi Sunak, accused the “metropolitan establishment” of having a “sneering attitude” towards England’s identity.
The former immigration minister said the ties that bind the nation are beginning to “fray” due to this attitude and the “influx of migrants”.
“The public have consistently voted against all of this. Those in Westminster are underestimating the depth of anger in the country,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.
Mr Jenrick suggested a suppression of England’s identity helped lead to riots this summer following the Southport stabbings.
He blamed years of “inter-communal violence, radicalisation and diminishing trust in our communities” for the riots.
More on Conservatives
Related Topics:
However, when asked by Sky News how he would define English identity, Mr Jenrick said he would not “distil the identity and the history of England into a soundbite”.
Given seven opportunities to say what English identity is, he said it is the history and culture of England which should be celebrated, but said that is not being taught “to our children”.
Advertisement
Asked what English identity is, ge said: “I think it is something some people across our country know about.”
Mr Jenrick also wrote in the Daily Mail it will be impossible to “heal our divided nation if we refuse to confront complex issues about identity”.
Mr Jenrick warned the UK could fall prey to the “ugly politics” of the far-right unless the identity crisis and immigration is brought under control.
He said the English “metropolitan elite…actively disapprove” of the country’s history and culture.
And he said “high status” people in Scotland and Wales are “proud to be Scottish and Welsh” as well as British, but those in England are “far from proud to be English”.
The 42-year-old was previously seen as a centrist, becoming an MP under David Cameron who he was a staunch supporter of.
A Sunak loyalist in the early days of his premiership, Mr Jenrick then moved towards the right after becoming immigration minister, telling former Tory MP Nickie Aiken “once he got into the weeds, he realised how broken the system was and that it needed full-scale reform”.
Last year, he resigned from Mr Sunak’s government as he said legislation to allow the Rwanda policy to go ahead did “not go far enough” to ensure it would happen.
The move was seen as laying the groundwork to run for Tory leader, which he is now doing.
He has proposed limiting net immigration to below 100,000 a year and called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights so asylum seekers could be deported to Rwanda.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:22
‘Wrong’ to chant Allahu Akbar ‘without being arrested’
Mr Jenrick told Sky News immigration has made England “richer” over the centuries but in the past 25 years “since Tony Blair” became prime minister, net migration has soared to 5.9 million.
“And that is just far too high and it’s made it impossible to successfully integrate people to ensure we have the sense of national togetherness and identity that I want to see,” he said.
He said putting a cap on immigration would make it “easier for us to successfully integrate people” and help with other issues such as housing, accessing public services and foreign labour undercutting British wages.
The Conservative admitted mass migration “has been a failure of both [Conservative and Labour] political parties”.
The other Tory leadership candidates are Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat.
They are getting ready for hustings to be held at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, which begins on 29 September.
MPs will then narrow the group to a final two, with the winner announced in November after being put to members in a vote.