Keir Starmer and Labour had earned the right to a bit celebration in Liverpool this week. Having turned Labour around from an utter mess to a party with the size of majority nobody should ever have, their Conference in Liverpool could have been an even bigger celebration than our display of sunshine and unbridled joy in Brighton last week.
However, the mood in Liverpool becomes gloomier with each headline.
And while some of the headlines are definitely the right wing press making trouble, others are signs of serious trouble within the Government.
Let’s take the fuss about the clothes first. Starmer, his Deputy Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves tried to stem the damage from reports that they had taken thousands of pounds for work clothing from wealthy donors by announcing that they would no longer do so.
I find it difficult to muster up anything other than mild irritation about this. It absolutely does not look great to people who are struggling to pay the rent every month and there is an argument that this should have been blindingly obvious to those who benefitted from these generous donations. When you are taking a vital help with energy bills from poor pensioners and not doing anything about social care, you need to really think about how out of touch you can look if you are seen to be throwing yours or someone else’s money around. And they should maybe have seen that it would have been lumped together with everything we’ve heard about Tories in a recent years in a file marked “sleazy politicians.”
There is no equivalence between the profligate, venal, corrupt behaviour of the Tories, doing things like handing out billions of public money to their mates and the stories we have seen about Labour. Many people, on whose votes they rely, won’t necessarily look at the detail and see the massive difference in scale. They may well be propelled into the arms of populists as a result. And given that some of those populists earn an almost six figure sum for a few hours’ work a month on the media, there is an irony there.
As far as the clothing is concerned, maybe that is a bit on us as well. It is perfectly possible to look smart by picking up a dress and jacket, or suit from some well known High Street stores, but we all have unconscious biases about how people look that have been fed by the media for years. We also know that those biases apply much more to women than they do to men.
When it comes to Keir Starmer’s box at Arsenal, I can see his point of view on this. If he were to stay in the stands, the security would undoubtedly cost a fortune and we’d all be complaining about that. You can see why he thinks that having a box is less disruptive and solves that problem. Going to the football is something that he has long done with his son, who is not going to be a boy forever and I can’t find it in my heart to grudge him that. In isolation, I don’t think anyone would have really bothered about this. The trouble is it’s being lumped in with all the other stuff.
The story that has the biggest implications for the workings of the Government is the row over Starmer’s Chief of Staff Sue Gray’s pay. And I am livid about this and not for the reasons you might be thinking. First of all, it’s annoying to see that it’s taken less than 3 months for disgruntled Labour people to start leaking things to Chris Mason. As Tory Peer Ruth Davidson said on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast this week, the only thing that ministers and Special Advisers should be squabbling about is slots on the media grid to get their message out. It’s not healthy that the internal relations of the Government are falling apart already.
And of the story itself, the top civil service pay grades are much higher than Sue Gray is getting paid. Whether you like her or not, she has extensive experience of how government works. There is a strong argument that she should be on one of the highest pay bands the Civil Service has. And she still has some way to go before she would hit the maximum £208,000.
But the thing that worries me most about what Keir Starmer has done this week? None of this. The sight of him standing side by side with Italy’s right wing populist leader praising her efforts to deal with illegal migration made my stomach turn. This is someone who sends those seeking asylum to camps in Albania to be processed. While Starmer stopped short of praising this measure specifically, there was something about the optics of this that I really didn’t like.
I wish he could be more like Tim Farron on this issue. Tim was on Question Time the other night. He has always been an advocate for a compassionate, human rights focus on refugees and asylum. I’ll never forget his emotional speech to Conference in 2015, full of raw, unfiltered rage at the plight of vulnerable people.
Tim’s comments on Thursday night were as humane and liberal as you would expect:
“I tell you what is the best deterrent, competence.” – @timfarron on #BBCQT
Instead of wasting money on failed schemes like the Rwanda Plan, let’s process asylum claims quickly. Return those who aren’t refugees humanely, and welcome those who are. pic.twitter.com/rb7JOQnhI8
— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) September 19, 2024
While Labour are not into performative cruelty like their predecessors and their language is more moderate, there is a lot more they could be doing to shift the dial on public opinion on this issue.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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13 Comments
Caron, you seem to miss the important point, it is about someone whether me, you or the Prime Minister paying for what they receive.
The football seat, it is totally irrelevant where the in the ground it is, in the corner with security around him or in the best visitors box, you PAY for the seat you are in.
He apparently deems that he is above such a mundane thing.
This is the previous head of the DPP!!!
Theakes, there is also an argument that because of the job he is in he is at more risk and that is not his fault and not an expense he should have to pay out of his own pocket.
And the important thing is that the donation of the box is appropriately registered so you have the transparency.
I accept that there is also an argument that he should just suck it up and watch the footie at home and not go the matches. That seems a bit harsh to me
Many of the objections to Rwanda also apply to Albania. The govt says Albania has significant and longstanding issues e.g trafficking and blood feuds that could lead to valid asylum claims that the Albanian government appears either unable or unwilling to resolve. So how can they be entrusted to assess asylum applications? https://miclu.org/blog/is-albania-a-safe-country
Starmer: it is about integrity, empathy and being a role model. He lets us down and should not be defended.
When you are famous and or rich people give you stuff and you get to sit in the directors box at the footie, well away from the riff raff. That’s just the way the world world works and i’m not sure you will ever stop it. The rules say he must declare such things and it seems he has. C’est la vie !
Its not just about copying Italian policies on Immigration, its about who The Italian PM is. She leads The Party founded by Mussolini, a party that has shown not one bit of shame, apology or even mild embarrassment about its History.
I’ve been mildly amused by the tsunami of ‘whataboutery’ from Labour supporters over the last couple of weeks. I just about get the football thing, in isolation. But no politician has to accept Taylor Swift tickets, free holidays, nice clothes, spectacles etc from donors. Unlike donations to campaign funds, those are not essential to electoral success.
Starmer, Rayner and Reeves were offered nice things from supporters and took them. If they were blind to the optics of that, regardless of the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance from thousands less fortunate than them, then maybe they aren’t very good politicians.
But what makes me most angry is that they are feeding that trope that we all hear too often on the doorstep – that voting doesn’t matter because politicians are all the same. We knew the Tories were venal grifters, but expected better from Labour. They have bitterly disappointed me.
But maybe now is the time to take advantage of the faux outrage of the Tories and ban this sort of thing completely?
Being more measured than the hysteria of the Daily Mail and its mates is not a high bar to get over. Mild irritation seems about right. In some ways the most worrying dimension is that the Labour leadership/advisory team didn’t see the onslaught coming.
This is about as good as it gets for Starmer and his government.
By the time they gather at their next conference they will likely be reeling from heavy losses in the local elections and the gloss such as it is will be gone.
Local parties in Labour areas will have a massive opportunity and as in the Blair years I expect us them to be making real progress. Come the next General Election seats like Bermondsey and Hallam will in play and Labour voters will be moving over to us in those places where we currently have MPs.
Our policies on things like the winter fuel allowance, two child benefit cap and social care allow us to appeal to centre left voters. We should also welcome any legislation to strengthen workers rights.
As far as Liberals are concerned the future looks bright!
There was no magnificent Labour victory. There was the greatest display of the failure of the first past the post system. I would like to see more attention from our party on how we can campaign for a more democratic electoral system. We cannot let people forget that Starmer got about the same vote as Corbyn.
Just after the 1997 General Election I was at a meeting in Cowley Street and the speaker was saying that we had seen the back of the sleaze that had bedevilled the last days of the Major government. I made some comment that the new government had not really had time yet. From the row behind Conrad Russell expressed the same sentiment, but much more pithily.
Afterthought: Who paid for Harold Wilson’s Gannex coats?
Caron. I am with you 100% on this and applauded your article in every way.
Starmer has form on this ! From when he was Director of Public Prosecutions –
://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-expenses-chauffeur-driven-car-b2319779.html
Clearly a man who likes the perks of the job.