{"id":77726,"date":"2024-09-15T08:57:07","date_gmt":"2024-09-15T07:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=77726"},"modified":"2024-09-15T08:57:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-15T07:57:39","slug":"77726","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/09\/15\/77726\/","title":{"rendered":"The ethics of the Starmer’s clothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian notes<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n

\n

Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Waheed Alli.<\/p>\n

The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs\u2019 interests, the Sunday Times reported.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The details do not matter. What is clear is that on top of the substantial (in my opinion) sums paid by Lord Alli for clothes for Keir Starmer (including more than \u00a32,000 for glasses) there were also significant payments made by the same person to provide clothes for Starmer's wife.<\/p>\n

Normally I would, of course, use her own name. I haven\u2019t for good reason: she only got these clothes because she was Keir Starmer\u2019s wife; there was no other reason.<\/p>\n

Did either of these two need such clothes?<\/p>\n

Could they really not afford an adequate wardrobe for the tasks they had to undertake?<\/p>\n

Were they really sure people voted for Sunak because he could afford very expensive tailor-made suits?<\/p>\n

Are they so insecure that looking to be rich matters?<\/p>\n

And how did they not comply with the rules?<\/p>\n

And (let me add this), will he be paying tax on these gifts, which appear to be personal benefits in kind resulting from his appointment?<\/p>\n

I do not, of course, know the answers to these questions. But what I do know are three things.<\/p>\n

First, the fact that they thought they could get away without declaring clothes gifted for the use of Lady Starmer is a very bad look, at best.<\/p>\n

Second, the vanity implicit in all this indicates that we have an incredibly shallow prime minister.<\/p>\n

And third, Starmer has, in a stroke, made clear that his goal is to be rich. Above all else, his reason for being in office is to acquire the trappings of wealth.<\/p>\n

He really should have stick to M&S suits and Specsavers glasses. His wife should have learned the art of the capsule wardrobe, which she could have afforded. Instead they have fallen for the trappings. That\u2019s not what I want from a prime minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian notes this morning: Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-labour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77728,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77726\/revisions\/77728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}