Fantastic, it’s been going so well for the last 14 years!
Miyatz on
We’re not unhappy about this being a new thing – we know it’s not. We’re unhappy about this being a thing at all. We expected better, and you failed to deliver that.
denyer-no1-fan on
[Bridget Phillipson](https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474) said that she accepted tickets to a Taylor Swift’s concert because her kids are keen to go. This is someone openly admitting using the office’s prestige to receive gifts and benefits. If this is within the rules then the rules need to change.
Dedsnotdead on
All MP’s do it, but your party campaigned on a ticket of openness and transparency. I’m struggling to see how you can describe significant amounts of money donated for clothing to you and/or your colleagues as “office costs”.
Perhaps you meant it is a donation for expensive clothes for you whilst you are in office. If so that’s just disingenuous.
It doesn’t say much for your view of the electorate if you think this is reasonable behaviour.
mpanase on
“We are not all the same”
“It’s ok because everybody does it”
Poor poor excuse. I expected better from you.
bishsticksandfrites on
Someone needs to send her that campaign video about Labour ran all about change. She seems to have forgotten quite quickly.
deprevino on
Political donations should be matched by an equal payment to the public coffers.
Educational-Sir78 on
“I promised nothing and gave him nothing in return,” she said of Alli’s donations.
How deluded can you be?
“As friends do, a friend allowed me to stay . . . people do stay at other people’s apartments.”
Yes I do sometimes sleep on. slightly uncomfortable sofa beds at my friend’s places, but rarely at a 12.5K/night apartment in Manhattan over Christmas. I clearly should try to get better friends.
0ttoChriek on
Yeah, but they shouldn’t. Accepting gifts is a gateway to the rampant corruption and cronyism we saw during the Tory years, which Labour railed against.
Right now it’s Taylor Swift tickets, but maybe the guy who gifted them will offer first class plane tickets next month. Maybe it’ll be an offer to stay in his luxury villa in the Caribbean after that. And then, eventually, a company he has a stake in wants a lucrative public contract.
Just don’t fucking do it.
BobMonkhaus on
I’m trying to imagine what donations Corbyn would accept besides a jug of organic scrumpy and maybe some new wellies.
beIIe-and-sebastian on
Has Labour’s PR team gone on a month long holiday? They really should just shut up about it if they don’t want to keep this dragging on. They keep digging the hole deeper for themselves.
Imagine how they’ll handle a properly good scandal.
BarrieTheShagger on
I’m not particularly interested in the petty politics that this is wrapped up in, but I see a very simple solution to this whole issue.
“Having taken £107,000 in gifts since 2019, Sir Keir has accepted more than two and a half times more than any other MP.”
“Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations to the value of £2,230”
Stop letting people donate to individual politicians, make it so that donors give money,gifts, and other services to the ENTIRE party and ensure that these are closely monitored by an independent government body.
If Keir had to share his donations with the lower level labour politicians it wouldn’t look anywhere near as bad as man in the top 5% of all Brits gets given freebies.
tiny-robot on
Wait – so no “change” then?
That was their entire platform for the GE!
CriticalBath2367 on
‘Everybody does it’ – So basically they are all corrupt as fuck, a shocking revelation.
outsideruk on
You either add the funding of party politics to the taxation load, or politicians will be funded through donations. If the donation route, making the reports and maintaining public records is the key, not losing the receipts down the back of your expensive new sofa. Then we can also track whether these donors are getting kickbacks like multimillion pound PPE contracts with no experience and shit products. It’s good that we know Labour are getting gifts, it’s the ones you don’t hear about that are dangerous.
Xenozip3371Alpha on
And if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too.
fyodorrosko on
Genuinely impressive how fucking bad these guys are at optics. Spend the entire election campaign saying you’re the change candidates and will clamp down on cronyism, and the first minute you get in the door immediately turn round and say “actually we’ll do everything the last guys did”, and not even pretend to be any less corrupt.
Actual-Suit8414 on
Following the Tory lead – snouts in the trough and making connections for post political life
BeerLovingRobot on
Just announce you are going to cut back on this free shit.
Why is it so hard? None of these perks/bribes/gifts are game changers for the job. It just adds doubt to their decision making and breaks down trust.
Anderrrrr on
Please, just shut the fuck up and say something competent unless you give Farage a free ticket to become PM from your own goals from constant shocking whole party communication.
Angela is basically saying here that “all politicians are the same!” rhetoric that members of the public say all the time in their day to day lives.
Jesus Christ they are getting outplayed by the media on shit they started themselves.
The communication on this Labour government is appalling, making the early Tony Blair government a different stratosphere in comparison to communication and decision making skills.
I should have voted Lib Dem. Tories are definitely worse, but fuck sake I don’t want a 5/10 mid as fuck government with utter shit communication.🫠
Bridgeboy95 on
The genuine insanity here is the defence from Starmer fans has now pivoted to
“Well everyone does it, so what if our elected officials are being bribed, as long as they declare they are being bribed its all ok! Does anyone else remember the conservative party?!”
Yeah I remember the conservative party, utter corrupt monsters, and we are currently shaping up to have Tories in red.
We have one labour MP admitting she took taylor swift tickets because her child wanted them, thats a bribe. its corruption and we are lowering ourselves when we say “The corruption is fine as long as you declare it”.
If you sit here and go “Well you know everyone does it, it was only a light bit of bribery” then you are absolutely a future tory voter in the making.
AnalTinnitus on
How quickly Labour went from crying “sleaze” at the Tories to doing the very same thing. Orwell warned us about this in Animal Farm.
In a few short months we’ve gone from “hope for the future” to “Austerity 2.0” and Labour sleaze rivalling that of the Tories.
Blank3k on
Bring dignity and transparency to politics, actually be “Honourable”.
I’m not pissed starmer is getting stuff for free either, I’m just annoyed it’s allowed / normalized.
Sure there’s grey zones such as the football tickets would have cost the country in security etc, you could argue the nice suits etc could also be put down as an expense… But at the end of the day, that’s how it should be.
and no MP/PM should owe anyone anything.
YYNJ_ on
Such an open goal to not accept gifts especially when you’re wages are being paid by the public. This shows how out of touch these people are and how much they couldn’t give less of a fuck about the public. They need to take these donations because it shows the people who put them in charge that they can still be bought and sold.
dav_man on
I think people are aware this kind of thing goes on. People are upset because these were supposed to be a cut above. “Adults in the building”, real, salt of the earth people etc etc.
So when you get a whiff of the same old same old, the backlash will seem disproportionate.
Robynsxx on
What a pathetic response. MPs are supposed to be public servants, not people using their position to enrich themselves.
Titerito_ on
I guess the UK bribery Act doesn’t apply to PMs then.
rusty_bucket_bay on
Angela Rayner: “We used to be a bunch of shysters, we still are but we used to too”
One_Reality_5600 on
That does not make it right. However, this is right-wing bollocks trying to distract us from the corruption of the last government.
Personally, I think a law should be passed making a criminal offence to accept any gifts while either sitting as an mp, including any member of their family, immediate or distant.
Or while sitting in the house of Lords.
29 Comments
So that makes it okay then, more of the same
Fantastic, it’s been going so well for the last 14 years!
We’re not unhappy about this being a new thing – we know it’s not. We’re unhappy about this being a thing at all. We expected better, and you failed to deliver that.
[Bridget Phillipson](https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474) said that she accepted tickets to a Taylor Swift’s concert because her kids are keen to go. This is someone openly admitting using the office’s prestige to receive gifts and benefits. If this is within the rules then the rules need to change.
All MP’s do it, but your party campaigned on a ticket of openness and transparency. I’m struggling to see how you can describe significant amounts of money donated for clothing to you and/or your colleagues as “office costs”.
Perhaps you meant it is a donation for expensive clothes for you whilst you are in office. If so that’s just disingenuous.
It doesn’t say much for your view of the electorate if you think this is reasonable behaviour.
“We are not all the same”
“It’s ok because everybody does it”
Poor poor excuse. I expected better from you.
Someone needs to send her that campaign video about Labour ran all about change. She seems to have forgotten quite quickly.
Political donations should be matched by an equal payment to the public coffers.
“I promised nothing and gave him nothing in return,” she said of Alli’s donations.
How deluded can you be?
“As friends do, a friend allowed me to stay . . . people do stay at other people’s apartments.”
Yes I do sometimes sleep on. slightly uncomfortable sofa beds at my friend’s places, but rarely at a 12.5K/night apartment in Manhattan over Christmas. I clearly should try to get better friends.
Yeah, but they shouldn’t. Accepting gifts is a gateway to the rampant corruption and cronyism we saw during the Tory years, which Labour railed against.
Right now it’s Taylor Swift tickets, but maybe the guy who gifted them will offer first class plane tickets next month. Maybe it’ll be an offer to stay in his luxury villa in the Caribbean after that. And then, eventually, a company he has a stake in wants a lucrative public contract.
Just don’t fucking do it.
I’m trying to imagine what donations Corbyn would accept besides a jug of organic scrumpy and maybe some new wellies.
Has Labour’s PR team gone on a month long holiday? They really should just shut up about it if they don’t want to keep this dragging on. They keep digging the hole deeper for themselves.
Imagine how they’ll handle a properly good scandal.
I’m not particularly interested in the petty politics that this is wrapped up in, but I see a very simple solution to this whole issue.
“Having taken £107,000 in gifts since 2019, Sir Keir has accepted more than two and a half times more than any other MP.”
“Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations to the value of £2,230”
Stop letting people donate to individual politicians, make it so that donors give money,gifts, and other services to the ENTIRE party and ensure that these are closely monitored by an independent government body.
If Keir had to share his donations with the lower level labour politicians it wouldn’t look anywhere near as bad as man in the top 5% of all Brits gets given freebies.
Wait – so no “change” then?
That was their entire platform for the GE!
‘Everybody does it’ – So basically they are all corrupt as fuck, a shocking revelation.
You either add the funding of party politics to the taxation load, or politicians will be funded through donations. If the donation route, making the reports and maintaining public records is the key, not losing the receipts down the back of your expensive new sofa. Then we can also track whether these donors are getting kickbacks like multimillion pound PPE contracts with no experience and shit products. It’s good that we know Labour are getting gifts, it’s the ones you don’t hear about that are dangerous.
And if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too.
Genuinely impressive how fucking bad these guys are at optics. Spend the entire election campaign saying you’re the change candidates and will clamp down on cronyism, and the first minute you get in the door immediately turn round and say “actually we’ll do everything the last guys did”, and not even pretend to be any less corrupt.
Following the Tory lead – snouts in the trough and making connections for post political life
Just announce you are going to cut back on this free shit.
Why is it so hard? None of these perks/bribes/gifts are game changers for the job. It just adds doubt to their decision making and breaks down trust.
Please, just shut the fuck up and say something competent unless you give Farage a free ticket to become PM from your own goals from constant shocking whole party communication.
Angela is basically saying here that “all politicians are the same!” rhetoric that members of the public say all the time in their day to day lives.
Jesus Christ they are getting outplayed by the media on shit they started themselves.
The communication on this Labour government is appalling, making the early Tony Blair government a different stratosphere in comparison to communication and decision making skills.
I should have voted Lib Dem. Tories are definitely worse, but fuck sake I don’t want a 5/10 mid as fuck government with utter shit communication.🫠
The genuine insanity here is the defence from Starmer fans has now pivoted to
“Well everyone does it, so what if our elected officials are being bribed, as long as they declare they are being bribed its all ok! Does anyone else remember the conservative party?!”
Yeah I remember the conservative party, utter corrupt monsters, and we are currently shaping up to have Tories in red.
We have one labour MP admitting she took taylor swift tickets because her child wanted them, thats a bribe. its corruption and we are lowering ourselves when we say “The corruption is fine as long as you declare it”.
If you sit here and go “Well you know everyone does it, it was only a light bit of bribery” then you are absolutely a future tory voter in the making.
How quickly Labour went from crying “sleaze” at the Tories to doing the very same thing. Orwell warned us about this in Animal Farm.
In a few short months we’ve gone from “hope for the future” to “Austerity 2.0” and Labour sleaze rivalling that of the Tories.
Bring dignity and transparency to politics, actually be “Honourable”.
I’m not pissed starmer is getting stuff for free either, I’m just annoyed it’s allowed / normalized.
Sure there’s grey zones such as the football tickets would have cost the country in security etc, you could argue the nice suits etc could also be put down as an expense… But at the end of the day, that’s how it should be.
and no MP/PM should owe anyone anything.
Such an open goal to not accept gifts especially when you’re wages are being paid by the public. This shows how out of touch these people are and how much they couldn’t give less of a fuck about the public. They need to take these donations because it shows the people who put them in charge that they can still be bought and sold.
I think people are aware this kind of thing goes on. People are upset because these were supposed to be a cut above. “Adults in the building”, real, salt of the earth people etc etc.
So when you get a whiff of the same old same old, the backlash will seem disproportionate.
What a pathetic response. MPs are supposed to be public servants, not people using their position to enrich themselves.
I guess the UK bribery Act doesn’t apply to PMs then.
Angela Rayner: “We used to be a bunch of shysters, we still are but we used to too”
That does not make it right. However, this is right-wing bollocks trying to distract us from the corruption of the last government.
Personally, I think a law should be passed making a criminal offence to accept any gifts while either sitting as an mp, including any member of their family, immediate or distant.
Or while sitting in the house of Lords.