OUT TO LUNCH

In all fairness, I doubt whether very many UK voters (whether Labour supporters or not) would have strenuously argued that the party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was the most charismatic individual on the political scene.

To start with, there’s an almost robotic quality to his movement which makes former PM Theresa May look positively animated by comparison.

Then there’s that adenoidal nasal whine that he has been cursed with as a speaking voice. Prime Ministers and Leaders of Her Majesty’s opposition need to sound in control and convincing when standing at the Despatch Box in the House of Commons.

These failings on Sir Keir’s part didn’t really matter too much when he was still on the opposition benches because he was a dull old bureaucrat but now he’s Prime Minister he will naturally come under far more scrutiny. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Last week though Sir Keir became a far more interesting person to the global media as it was revealed that he is a freeloader of note. In fact his excesses, while nowhere near the scale of some of our own ANC freeloaders, show that he is a true socialist in the sense of putting out the message to the proles….do as I say and not as I do.

It was very recently that a story broke in the UK media about a Labour party major funder buying Keir Starmer some spectacles. At first I thought this must be fake news because it is getting very difficult to sift the media wheat from the chaff these days. But, sure enough it turned out to be true and the generous donor turned out to be Lord Alli, who was elevated to the House of Lords in his mid-thirties during the early stages of Tony Blair’s period as prime minister. Lord Alli (whose wealth is estimated at £200 million) can reasonably lay claim to being the only known openly gay Muslim politician and a dedicated campaigner for LGBT rights.

Lord Alli was also one of those behind the hugely successful reality TV show ‘Survivor’ which may offer a crumb of comfort to the man now known as ‘free gear Keir’ among the gossiping classes.

Offering to buy a senior politician a pair of spectacles might easily be seen as a veiled insult in normal societies; just as offering to buy him a hearing aid or a white stick would be. But Sir Keir had no such reservations and apparently several pairs of ‘power’ specs were sponsored by Lord Alli to the tune of R57 000 if press reports are accurate.

Lord Alli’s reward seems to have been a free pass to enter 10 Downing Street whenever he felt like it, to help himself to the chocolate digestives and to help choose key staff members for the incoming prime minister. When you donate huge sums to a political party, particularly one that was very critical of Tory party sleaze, you want to make sure that they do as they are damn well told….pipers and tunes and all that stuff.

In the past few weeks it has emerged that the multiple spectacle deal was but a tiny part of the bounty that ‘free gear Keir’ has benefitted from. There have been suits, tickets to a Taylor Swift concert, tickets to watch Arsenal and, quite possibly, a few Nando’s meals all adding up so far to a grand total of R368 000.

Weirdest of all though is the revelation that Lord Alli dresses Sir Keir’s wife. Well not literally of course but he did provide her with a personal shopper and about R115 000 to buy some decent frocks so that she can appear in public with her husband without risking cruel sniggering from the media’s fashionistas. Personally, I would find it rather emasculating if another man paid for my wife’s clothing but I’m not a socialist politician.

Initially, all this sleaze was defended by Starmer and his senior colleagues because they argued that they needed to look their best when representing Britain on the world stage. None of that turning up to G meetings in a green t-shirt like that Ukrainian scruff Zelenskyy.

Starmer has now revealed (after some pressure) that between the general election in 2019 and July 1st this year he has received R2.4 million worth of freebies.

The obvious questions to be asked (and the UK media aren’t holding back) is how could Sir Keir and his senior ministers be so tone deaf as to not imagine this would cause strife so early on in his premiership? More importantly though is the obvious question of why isn’t he paying for these things out of his own pocket? Questions we also ask in SA when an MP earning R1.7 million a year still can’t afford to buy their own car and has to have a luxury model supplied by the idiots who pay tax.

Sir Keir and Lady Starmer earn about £200 000 per annum between them so one might have thought that the household budget would have stretched to a pair of specs and some reasonably smart clothing but nothing excessive.

After all, we surely don’t expect a Labour prime minister to pitch up to meetings wearing a well-tailored Gieves and Hawkes bespoke suit.

According to the London Sunday Times:

“Labour staff have privately expressed confusion and unease at Starmer’s reliance on donors, foremost among them Lord Alli, to fund his lifestyle.

One questioned why Starmer needed the funds, given that he lives rent-free in No 10, owns a townhouse in Kentish Town in northwest London, and does not send his children to private school. He also earnt at least £100 000 in private consultancy fees after stepping down as director of public prosecutions”.

With the Labour conference taking place this week I suppose it was inevitable that No 10 would make a public announcement that the Starmers, Rachel Reeves and deputy PM Angela Rayner will no longer accept donations for clothes but that’s only because they’ve been caught doing so. If the UK media hadn’t kicked up such a fuss then the practice would no doubt have continued. After all, one of the basic tenets of socialism is that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

With the new Labour government not even three months in power the wheels really do seem to be coming off. Apart from the dire economic situation, uncontrolled illegal immigration and the threat of spending cuts and higher taxes there is also an issue as to who is actually running the country. Some say it is the PM’s chief of staff Sue Gray who was previously better known for conducting an investigation into Tory party shenanigans during COVID.

A BBC report revealed last week that she earns more than the Prime Minister and suggested that the unelected Gray saw herself as deputy prime minister. One figure at the heart of the No 10 faction fighting commented, “The only thing they got wrong was to include the word ‘deputy’. This is showing she’s the most powerful person in Britain; that the prime minister works for her”.

Given Starmer’s admitted reluctance to put in the late hours and his insistence to leave Friday evenings sacrosanct for family dinner it’s hardly surprising that Starmer’s popularity rating has fallen. With the Labour government so dysfunctional and scandal ridden this early on it’s also hardly surprising that 17% of Labour voters polled by The Times said they regretted their vote.

Here in South Africa political sleaze is a way of life and we no longer pretend to be surprised when the same thieving lowlifes get sent back to parliament but in the UK, while not unknown, it is more the exception than the rule. Or rather, it was. These days anything is possible.

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I wasn’t one of those who revelled in the news that the Daily Maverick may have to slash 5% of their workforce in order to remain liquid. While the publication does have the unfortunate reputation of being woke and harbouring a fair number of virtue signalling ‘bedwetters’ it does also manage to come up with some first-class investigative journalism and political comment which more than compensates for the more mundane stuff.