Sir Keir Starmer has been slammed recently forthe amounts of gifts that he has received as Labour leader and now as Prime Minister. He has received more than £100,000, including almost £40,000 in football tickets, since December 2019, more than twice the amount of Labour’s Lucy Powell in second place.
The scrutiny was a major talking point on BBC‘s Question Time last night, when the former Liberal Democrat leader told Sir Keir to have “some basic wisdom” when it comes to accepting gifts in office.
Tim Farron, who remains a Lib Dem MP, won huge plaudits from the audience for his stance on the political BBC debate programme.
He told the audience: “My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them – don’t do it in the first place.”
When host Fiona Bruce asked whether he would accept tickets for a football game, Mr Farron responded: “I’d go watch Kendal Town and I’d pay a ticket to go in.
“I got offered semi-final tickets to watch Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup a few years ago and I didn’t go. It doesn’t make me super worthy.”
The MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale said he didn’t accept the “implied grubbiness or wrong-doing” that had dominated stories around Sir Keir.
However, he added: “Don’t want to impugn people’s integrity. But, if you are an MP, you are representing a whole range of people, from lots of different backgrounds and income groups. And you know you are in a position where you get paid better than most of them.”
Mr Farron said that the controversy surrounding the gifts came down to “how it looks”.
He said that leadership is about “trying to walk in the shows of the people that you do represent and in my view, you should be relatively austere in how you live your life”.
The Lib Dem MP issued a blunt warning to the PM: “A lot of these events are perfectly legitimate but out of basic wisdom, you should be seen to be doing the right thing, and you should turn these things down.”
The PM has repeatedly defended his decision to accept gifts. He said that he accepted corporate hospitality from Arsenal FC because he had been advised it would cost the taxpayer more in security costs to use his normal seat.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer has been slapped down by one of Labour’s most senior figures and an ally. However, Labour ally Baroness Harriet Harman told the Prime Minister “doubling down” is angering and alienating voters.
Baroness Harman urged Starmer to “deal with the criticism” and accept that such donations were not acceptable. She said: “He just needs to say, ‘Right, with hindsight, I’m going to do things differently’… and then move on.
“It’s not a hanging offence, but I think doubling down and trying to justify it is making things worse.
“You canjust say it was probably a misstep, if I had my time again I wouldn’t do it and therefore I’m going to auction [it] for charity or something. I think at the moment he’s just got to get rid of every distraction he possibly can.”
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