PM Starmer Shakes Up Charity Landscape: Clothing Donations to Come to an End
[Epoch Times September 26, 2024](Reported by Epoch Times UK News Station) Due to the huge controversy, the Prime Minister’s Office recently announced that Prime Minister Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will no longer accept any clothing donations.
Earlier reports in the British media revealed that Starmer received more than 16,000 pounds in clothing and glasses donations, and his wife Victoria also received 5,000 pounds in clothing donations. These donations came from Labour Party House of Lords member Waheed Alli.
The Financial Times reported that Renard and Rivers also declared clothing donations worth thousands of pounds from donors.
The revelations came as Labour held its first annual conference since coming to power in Liverpool, where it sought to end the controversy over clothing donations. Rayner spoke of “restoring trust in politics”.
The prime minister insisted he had followed the rules on donations but Victoria’s donations were not declared. The Labor leadership’s relationship with wealthy donor Lord Arley has once again come under the spotlight.
Before the election, Alli also donated money or items to six other members of the Labour Party cabinet. After the Labour government came to power, he once had a pass to enter the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Conservatives accused Labour of being “pure hypocrites”. A Conservative spokesman said: “Keir Starmer and his senior team accepted thousands of pounds of free clothes while leaving 10 million pensioners in a cold and difficult winter. They accepted large amounts of free gifts while lecturing the public about integrity, ethics and hard choices, and appear to have persistently failed to properly register these gifts.”
The Conservatives called for a parliamentary inquiry into why gifts from personal shoppers and clothing alterations were not declared on the MPs’ register, but the commissioner in charge of the inquiry has not launched one.
“Gift King”
In addition, Starmer is an Arsenal fan and accepted free match tickets worth thousands of pounds during the last parliament, so he was called the “King of Giveaways” by the media.
Starmer has an annual ticket for the Arsenal, but says security concerns mean he can no longer watch games from the regular stands and he is reluctant to ask taxpayers to pay extra for his attendances.
According to parliamentary records, most of the free tickets Starmer received were provided by football clubs or the Premier League, including tickets to match matches provided to him by two companies.
More than 70 sitting MPs from the House of Commons have listed free tickets to sporting events in their registers of interests over the past year, with the tickets being provided by private donors, companies, football clubs and sports governing bodies.
Editor-in-charge: Chen Bin