I admit that Sabrina Carpenter is a person about whose music I know very little. For all I know, I might have never heard a song that she has either written or performed. Mention Karen Carpenter, and things might be different. That's how the passing of time works when you reach a certain age, but it also means that the performer in question would not usually get a mention on this blog.
So why has she? That is because Rachel Reeves did, apparently, take at least two tickets in a corporate box at a performance Sabrina Carpenter gave in London, taking at least one of her children with her.
Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that Sabrina Carpenter has been party to any wrongdoing. She can strut her stuff on the stage if she wishes, and if the paying public wants to part with their income to enable her to do so, then that is her right. The point that I am making is that Rachel Reeves did not part with cash to attend this event. She took a freebie instead.
The optics of this are truly dire.
I am well aware that Reeves has offered, as an excuse, the fact that her security could not have been guaranteed if she had not attended in a box, and that box seats were not available for sale, and so she had to accept a donated seat instead. This, I suggest, is the comment of a politician totally out of touch with reality. The option of not attending did, after all, exist.
Vast numbers of people in this country, including all of those who have been penalised already by what Rachel Reeves has done as Chancellor, or who will be very soon, could not have attended this concert, however much their son or daughter might have wished to do so. Reeves had ensured this for them. She could, therefore, have joined their ranks, albeit for a different reason, which was that her security was at risk.
Alternatively, her husband could have taken their child who wished to go, and no one would have noticed. For the sake of the record, it is known that fathers can do such things. It is possible. Precisely for that reason, her excuse makes absolutely no sense at all. The reality is that she wanted to attend, and she took the freebie.
To put it politely, doing so shows the most gross lack of political judgement. At a time when she is imposing austerity on millions directly, whilst threatening the financial well-being of a great many more people in this country by driving the economy into an unnecessary recession, to accept very high-value concert tickets as a consequence of her position makes her look like a person totally out of touch with the reality of life for most people in the UK.
There is a good reason for that impression being projected, of course. She is a person totally out of touch with the reality of life for most people in this country. That might now make her a typical Labour politician, but the public will not forget.
High political office comes with a price attached. One of those prices is that there are certain things that you cannot do. Reeves and Starmer do not want to pay that price, but they do want all the trappings of office. There is a word to describe that behaviour. It is greedy. That is what they are. The public has worked that out. And they have realised that these desperately greedy people are imposing hardship and austerity upon them, and others, by deliberate political choice. It is hardly surprising that Labour is losing popularity so quickly.
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Thank you and well said, Richard.
I also think that, and this goes back to the days of Blair and even Major, we are governed by a deracinated elite. The likes of Reeves do such things because they can and they know the game is up for, not just the Labour Party, but the UK, too, so why not enjoy the trappings of power and sell the country to the highest bidder.
Please have a look at this post and the comments, especially the British ones, BTL: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03/satyajit-das-doge-the-accelerant-in-american-decline.html.
Fur the U.K.? Definitely….
If I may offer a dissenting voice. I know the dice are loaded, I know the game is fixed (L.Cohen – Everybody knows), but, I don’t accept that all is lost. There are no “quick solutions” to the mess we are in but perhaps restoring a sense of community – within communities – is a start. Richard posted a blog called “Little Boxes” which reproduce the lyrics of the song by the same name by Pete Seger. Thus does the physical (housing estates) atomise society. But finding common purpose in some community project could start to rebuild a sense of community & thus reduce atomisation, & people need a sense of commmunity to survive – and with that sense of community goes empathy.
https://dangoyal.substack.com/p/empathy-and-musk-ignorant-or-inhuman
As per usual, Dr Goyal comes up with something resonant with good sense. I used to despise Coronation Street (although along with mother/grandmother watched it as a child in the 1960s). On mature reflection, in the 1960s it was a combo of entertainment and an effort at generating empathy in the audience. Community project could also generate empathy. Perhaps this is something that society (local gov?) could try to do. I don’t expect central government to do this – for the reasons outlined by Col Smithers & others. Perhaps I’m too much of an optmist?
I think optimism is good
@Mike Parr
I like this.
To lighten the mood, have a look at this local project, from the Knowle West Media Centre, who unlike many “community” projects, don’t come and tell us what is needed, but involve us at every stage to find out. It shows. I know these people personally, and they know our neighbourhood and genuinely transform people’s lives.
https://wecanmake.org
Small, but very beautiful.
& their parent organisation
https://kwmc.org.uk/projects/wecanmake/
It’s worth looking at the ‘we can make’ video and looking also at the guiding principles which can be translated into lots of other communities. It will cheer you up, if Rachel (Destroyer) Reeves has got you down.
I like it
I should have added that, living in Buckinghamshire, so near Chequers and Dorneywood and private country retreats of former politicians, including four former PMs, and knowing police and local authority officials, one hears of their Leona Hemsley attitudes.
She doesn’t care what the public, or her own constituents, think. This isn’t the first time she’s taken freebies; she knows the reaction but goes ahead anyway.
Her sense of entitlement is off the charts and she’s milking the freebies whilst she can. She maybe dumped any time now – but not soon enough – and her freebies will be transferred to whomever takes her place.
Thank you.
I had a longer comment to that effect, hence the odd comment published above.
Sorry – moderating as and when possible this morning
And just who gave her those tickets?
“And just who gave her those tickets?”
Precisely. Laura K doesn’t appear to have thought of asking that obvious question.
She did ask why Reeves didn’t pay for them, to which Reeves “responded that they were not tickets you could pay for.” No doubt she has access to a whole load of nice things that mysteriously can’t be paid for.
The concert venue (O2) has corporate and VIP facilities, for a fee, as you would expect. I checked yesterday, it’s all on their website.
https://www.theo2.co.uk/events/premium/suites-and-memberships/suite-for-the-night/
(See my post above)
Her answer to LauraK was deceptive. And stupid. It will be part of the excuses that will be used to remove her, without any admission that her macro-economics is rubbish.
Cannot speak for the UK but in the USA if she had donated the cost (worth) for the two tickets ($5,000.00 is my guess) to charity she could have gotten away with attending the concert unscathed.
However, it is my hypothesis that Rachel Reeves could not afford these tickets at face value (everything has a face value) anymore than Boris Johnson could afford to buy his wife the wallpaper that she wanted for 10 Downing street.
My evaluation is that Reeves, like BloJo Johnson and the Royals, is a grifter.
But she is entitled…..
Thank you, both.
That trait was displayed at HBOS, where she led a complaints handling team.
Just one of many ethical concerns regarding the use of public funds and freebies.
“But she is entitled…..”
Entitled to what exactly????
Taking full advantage of her position?
That is what I mean..
All it takes is one member of the public to produce evidence that box seats were available for sale and Reeves is yesterday’s toast.
But you do have to wonder how entertainment works at that level. Someone must make the first move and say ‘I’d like 3 box seats for Sabs’, and someone you know must get back in touch and say ‘you can have them and for free’ and then you have the option to say ‘Don’t want them for free, just want to know how to buy’.
I’m not defending Reeves, but I wonder how many people will call foul on this while ignoring the fact that Nigel Farage’s lifestyle doesn’t exactly match the lives of the people he purports to represent.
He is rotten to the core.
Thank you, both.
That goes for all of the Reform MPs and their celebrity hangers on.
Agreed. But Farage is not in Government. And that matters.
Who donated the tickets? And why? Cui bono?
Is this just someone doing a nice thing for Reeves at a personal level? Or about buying access? Or an exchange of favours?
Reeves is employed by her electors as an MP and by the public as a senior government minister. But is she also a “client” of a “patron”?
Would the civil servants who serve in her department be permitted to accept a gift of this nature and value?
Well we can all think of things we would like to do but do not have the money for it and have to put up with it. Government ministers should not accept any freebies because it looks bad that their lifestyle is being subsidised while others lose out and also in some cases they could be seen as being in the pocket of an organisation. I think Keir Starmer gets free tickets for football? He could watch it on TV like most people do!
I will cut Keir Starmer some slack as the PM.
The Prime Minister, like the Royals, is representing the nation.
If the POTUS or Vice-POTUS goes to a baseball game (and many have) or an Olympic event , they do not pay (nor do their working security people) as they are representing the nation.
For a private round of golf, the POTUS or Vice-POTUS would have to pay.
But Sabrina Carpenter concerts do not fall into that catgeory
I agree some things do
@BayTampaBay The PM was not representing the Nation at an Arsenal match. Of the eight Arsenal matches Starmer got free tickets for between January and September 2024, only one was against another foreign club – Porto. The rest were club games. The value was £13,000.
PM doesn’t represent the nation/UK. Working royals do – and we have a whole battalion of them to do the presenting business – and we also pay them more than enough for this. PM is just an MP who happens to lead the government at a certain point in time.
@Peter D
Sorry! I forgot that the PM is NOT the Head of State.
My Bad!
I will no longer cut Starmer any slack!
If there were no other way of attending due to security issues, she could have taken the seat and donated the equivalent price to charity. She can’t change the security issue, but she could put it to good use. These people are so lacking in imagination …
I said the exact same thing but added that this Rachel Reeves person could probably not afford to make a donation in the amount of the face value of the concert tickets.
This Rachel Reeves person is not stupid (though she does lack imagination). This Rachel Reeves person is a GRIFTER!
She can easily afford to make such a donation. She’s loaded!
I suspect she thinks otherwise
For me the real issue here is that this demonstrated the social distance between the likes of Reeves and the rest of us.
Over time we have built a system in which our politicians are removed from society. I recall as a teenager being able to walk up to the doors of number 10, without being challenged. Yes I know times have changed but we seem to lock our politicians away more and more, resulting in less and less respect for them as they get more and more out of touch.
Here is a radical solution why not buy a ticket in the stalls and just attend the gig like any other person?
If anybody hasn’t already read Darren McGarvey’s book The Social Distance Between Us, i would highly recommend it.
These are institutional creatures, who follow the guidelines set before them and ignore all externalities (such as the real world impacts of their decisions). Why? Power, and wealth. At some point in their lives they decided that this was all they wanted, all they respected, and thus killed whatever part of them connected with the rest of us, or society at large. The sense of entitlement stems from this ‘sacrifice’.
It all wreaks of the corporate entertaining circuit spanning ‘the season’ in and around London. Lord’s, Wimbledon, the Derby, Ascot, Henley, Glyndebourne and more. A merry go round where one company entertains at one such for its ‘clients’, and then gets invited to all the others as client of theirs. Part of their ‘entitlements’.
And maybe it would have been a better look to suspend the payrise for MPs, and end the subsidies in the Houses of Parliament ‘canteens’ and bars. Why do MPs get their heating and other expenses paid? Surely they are less deserving of this than many pensioners.
Thank you, Richard.
One wonders if, in this context, freebie should be renamed freebribie.
I realise that first TV and then Social Media have changed the situation BUT is all this security all the time really necessary?
I seem to remember a few years ago the Dutch PM was taking his caravan round the UK and there is I understand a photo of Attlee when he was PM waiting patiently with his family at a customs post on the Northern Irish border when he was PM, no escort in evidence, just the family car.
Even the late Queen was seen wandering The Cotswolds with a Lady in Waiting and no obvious security.
In the last case I guarantee it was there
Things that make me realise what having a “tin ear” means.
Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West and *Pudsey*.
*Pudsey* Bear, symbol of the BBC Children In Need charity appeal and named after her constituency.
Anne. Pudsey is a village on the outskirts of Leeds. For the avoidance of doubt, it certainly existed long before Pudsey bear came along.
Want a corporate box for an O2 concert event?
https://www.theo2.co.uk/events/premium/suites-and-memberships/suite-for-the-night/
Seem to have plenty of different hire options to suit every eventuality, if you can afford it.
I bet no one asks her about it again.
“I bet no one asks her about it again.”
Well someone needs to ask and others need keep asking!!!
I wonder what the commentariat of The Fail thinks this latest escapade Reeves’ ????
My depressing line of thinking goes like this: Reeves is a very experienced politician, so she must understand the optics of accepting such ‘gifts’. The fact that she isn’t worried about the fallout is actually very scary. It seems to suggest that she thinks that being the object of disgust of almost everyone in the country is of no importance. Even worse, she may well be right… politics has become so divorced from everyone else that it really can continue to exist despite being in its own vacuous bubble.
In the olden days when I was bound by the confines of an RAF career, there were many things I could not do, however much I might have wanted to. Those things were either forbidden or assessed as having the potential to “bring the Service into disrepute”. I knew most of the rules and requirements before I joined, and learned the rest very swiftly afterwards.
In public life, including the military, one’s actions are – quite rightly – open to scrutiny. The public pays our salaries, and has the right to expect our actions to be above reproach. When we fall short, the public has the right to question our commitment to the standards they expect.
With great power comes great responsibility. That includes not taking the piss.
Agreed
There is a supplementary question. How much security. Where were they during the concert. Who paid for their tickets??
It seems there were also tickets to two shows at the National Theatre where I expect the royal box would have been made available. Again how much security where were they and who paid.
Ms Reeves is only too happy to take opportunities that are denied to other people. She should at least make a public donation to the National Theatre’s educational fund.
Civil servants must not accept gifts or hospitality from anyone which might reasonably be seen to compromise their integrity.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-civil-servants-receiving-hospitality
GMC Members and staff (e.g. doctors) must not accept any gifts or hospitality from any of their employments which might, or might reasonably appear to, compromise their personal judgement or integrity or place them under an improper obligation
https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents/gifts-and-hospitality-policy—dc8295-63782198.pdf
Three quarters of Britons say it’s unacceptable for the Prime Minister to accept gifts from businesses or organisations.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/three-quarters-britons-say-its-unacceptable-prime-minister-accept-gifts-businesses-or-organisations
Accountants are subjecy to the same sorts of rules – and I lived by them.
I sympathise with Reeves. I recently accepted hospitality from an existing supplier to see Peter Kay at the O2. Unfortunately my company refused to allow me to go in case it even gave the perception that I might give favourable treatment to that supplier (true story). I was mildly irritated, but had to accept the rightness of it. Ah, I see the difference! I’m a thoroughly debased and corruptible corporate lackey, whereas Reeves is an unimpeachable public servant. No one could ever think a Labour minister capable of being influenced unduly given their history of refusing employment by vested interests.
🙂