Starmer to no longer accept donations to pay for clothes, Sky News understands
Sir Keir Starmer will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes, Sky News understands.
Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner also announced they would take the same approach moving forward.
The decision by the prime minister, chancellor and deputy prime minister follows scrutiny of Sir Keir Starmer and his wife for accepting donations.
The prime minister has accepted work clothing donations worth £16,200, and multiple pairs of glasses, to the value of £2,485.
According to the MP register of interests, Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations too, to the value of £2,230.
Sky News understands that in June, the deputy prime minister also received a donation by Lord Waheed Alli, a television executive who has donated to Labour over the last 20 years, of £3,550.
The donation was registered but its nature, now understood to be work clothing, was not published.
Sky News understands that since the backlash over the freebies, the registrar was contacted to ensure the donation was published with all the necessary details.
The chancellor has not accepted any such donations, according to the MPs’ register of interests.
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Nigel Farage has called out the PM for accepting free gifts
Sky News revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.
Sir Keir was found to have received substantially more gifts and freebies than any other MP as his total in gifts, benefits, and hospitality topped £100,000 since December 2019.
This had all been declared as per the rules but backbench MPs had been expressing concern that the government’s rhetoric of tough decisions on the economy jars with the image of a prime minister accepting freebies.
The row started over the weekend with controversy over Sir Keir’s wife’s clothes.
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Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said earlier today she is “satisfied” with the prime minister’s explanation of why he has taken the freebies.
She said if he “wasn’t doing a good job in our country” then she “would be more concerned”.
Ms Phillips went on to say it’s not that she doesn’t think it’s important, but added: “I haven’t had a single email about it.
“I have had lots of emails about people not being able to get on a housing list.”
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People react to the prime minister receiving gifts and freebies
Challenged on the fact that it looks bad having just taken away the winter fuel allowance from pensioners, Ms Phillips said these are “completely separate things”.
“And had he never been to watch the Arsenal, there would still be a £22bn black hole that had to be paid for,” she added.
She said: “All I can say is I’m absolutely knackered trying to make things better.”
What has the PM said in response to criticism?
Speaking to journalists this week, the prime minister said “all MPs get gifts” and he thinks the need to declare them is “a good framework”.
“Wherever there are gifts from anyone, I’m going to comply with the rules,” he said.
“It’s very important to me that the rules are followed. I’ve always said that. I said that before the election. I reinforced it after the election.”
On his acceptance of Arsenal tickets, he added: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say: ‘Well, bad luck.’
“That’s why gifts have to be registered. But… never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”
Regulating and speeding up payments without a CBDC are more important to the Canadian central bank.
The SEC notice seemed to be an industry first after the commission approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds on US exchanges in January.
Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.
He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.
“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.
He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.
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Highlights of Farage’s conference speech
“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”
Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.
He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.
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Farage jokes about PM accepting gifts
But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.
Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.
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PM will no longer accept clothes donations
“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.
He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.
He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”
Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.
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