London, Eng.- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has come under fire for accepting gifts worth more than $130,000 since late 2019, including dresses for his wife and tickets to Taylor Swift concerts and football matches.
Most of these donations, which are legal and declared in the parliamentary register, were made when Starmer was leader of the Labour Opposition, although he continued to enjoy them since his arrival in Downing Street, after his party won the general elections at the beginning of July.
The revelations come as the government calls for people to prepare to make some effort in the face of future budget constraints. One of the most controversial measures is the planned scrapping of an energy voucher for ten million pensioners. According to a Sky News investigation, Keir Starmer has received more than £107,145 in donations since December 2019, far more than any other MP. In second place is another Labour MP, Lucy Powell, with £40,289 in gifts.
The top donor is Waheed Alli, a multimillionaire member of the House of Lords. His total gifts amount to £39,122, including accommodation, “work clothes” (worth £16,200) and several pairs of glasses.
Starmer, a fan of the London club Arsenal, received invitations to football matches worth more than £40,000. Tickets for the Taylor Swift concert he attended with his wife in June were worth around £4,000. His wife Victoria received designer clothes worth more than £5,000. This gift from Waheed Allo was not declared in the register by the now Prime Minister. The conservative press, meanwhile, refers to the “shocking” revelations. The Daily Mail dubbed Starmer “Sir Freebie” and referred to him as a “champagne socialist.” Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch, who is running to be the leader of the Conservatives, criticised Keir Starmer’s “hypocrisy” in the Sun. When in opposition, she often reproached her predecessor, the wealthy Rishi Sunak, for being “out of touch” with ordinary people. Asked about the invitations to the Arsenal box on Monday, Keir Starmer claimed that he could not sit in the stands “for security reasons”. “Never going to an Arsenal game because you can’t accept an invitation is going too far,” he said.
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