How big of Keir Starmer to refuse donations for clothes! If he had any heart, he would still be taking the money but giving it to charity – or to initiatives to help the poor.

The £16,000 he received from Labour peer Waheed Alli may not seem like much, but according to the BBC article, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner have also received donations. If all MPs who took such cash were to hand it over to locally-based good causes (in their constituencies), who knows how many people they could help?

It is what they were elected to do, after all – help people in their constituencies.

And they are among more than 70 current MPs who have admitted receiving gifts in their register of interests.

And it would have helped them fend off the accusations of hypocrisy flying from the Conservatives:

The Conservatives said Labour were “pure hypocrites”.

A Tory spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer and his top team have accepted thousands of pounds in freebie clothes whilst simultaneously consigning 10 million pensioners to a cold and hard winter.

“And not only have they loaded up on freebies whilst lecturing the public about integrity, morality, and tough choices – they also appear to have continuously failed to properly register these crony gifts.”

The Tories have even managed to make themselves look as though they’ve learnt from their own mistakes:

Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “One would have thought Keir Starmer might have learned from our own [Conservatives] mistakes when we were in government.”

“What matters is how you behave, how you are seen to behave, how you adopt your leadership role in public life, how you deliver your integrity and about your commitment to your role”.

Of course we know these are empty words and, if they get power again, the Tories will do exactly as they have in the past – in much the same way as Labour emulated the Tories in appointing cronies to senior government positions after strongly criticising that behaviour.

Note that the decision to refuse gifts does not extend to Starmer’s wife, who is not a member of Parliament. But why should she get freebies just because she is connected to one?

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