In the UK, the Starmer couple’s fondness for gifts is causing controversy – Technologist

LETTER FROM LONDON

Two and a half months after Labour came to power, a slight whiff of scandal is already wafting through Downing Street. The Sunday Times revealed a few days ago that the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, had failed to declare within the required 28 days, as per parliamentary rules, gifts to his wife, Victoria Starmer, to the value of £5,000 (around €5,950). These sums, paid by Waheed Alli, a generous donor to the Labour Party when he was opposition leader, were mainly used to buy clothes.

Until these past few months, Victoria Starmer, 51, a trained lawyer working for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), had been very discreet. However, she suddenly found herself in the spotlight this spring during the general election campaign. The media reported on her love of horse racing and midi dresses, the mid-calf dresses popular among fashionable British women. On July 5, the day she entered Downing Street on her husband’s arm after Labour’s resounding election victory, she wore a scarlet dress by British brand Me + Em, priced at £275. During the Buckingham Palace reception for the Japanese emperor and her first trip to Washington for the NATO summit, she wore two pristine dresses from another British brand, Needle & Thread.

Starmer defended himself on Monday, September 16, stressing that there was a “massive difference between [late] declarations and corruption.” His wife is not the only one involved. The leader also received donations worth £20,000 from Alli, a member of the House of Lords, for work clothing, with £16,000 spent on suits and £2,400 on glasses. In addition to these payments, which were declared to parliament in good time, and most of which took place before Starmer joined Downing Street, there were numerous other donations (from the Premier League or hotel companies). These included £4,000 worth of tickets to Taylor Swift concerts as well as football matches (Starmer is a huge Arsenal fan).

Luxury wallpaper and dream villa

The Guardian has done the sums: Since 2019, the Labour leader has accepted gifts worth a record £100,000. By comparison, Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor, was quite frugal. During his tenure, from 2015 to 2019, he declared only a handful of Glastonbury Festival tickets worth £450 and a collector’s book he donated to a museum. “All MPs get gifts,” Starmer said on Monday, adding that for security reasons, he could no longer visit stadium stands like other spectators and had to accept VIP box invitations to keep attending games. For the time being, he has ruled out refusing such donations in the future.

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