Why “Donorgate” matters

We have seen a succession of leftie activists leaping to the defence of the Prime Minister and his ministerial team in recent days, as the furore over “donorgate” has continued to gain traction across the media, no doubt far exceeding the lifespan that Starmer and his acolytes expected the story would enjoy.

Interviews with Labour politicians and supporters, and the timelines of left-wing social media accounts, have been filled with the usual examples of ‘whataboutery’ in response to this, which has become the standard go-to defence when they are unable to justify their position. They point to Boris Johnson accepting a donation from a Tory donor to have the flat at No. 10 re-decorated, or to Rishi Sunak supposedly spending £40 million of tax-payers money on a private helicopter to ferry him around the country.

In recent days, we have seen ex-footballer turned Starmer arse-licker-in-chief Gary Neville say that he “…finds it absolutely incredible that this level of attention is now being paid to a Labour Prime Minister, when I look at the absolute cronyism that we watched for years under that lot [the Tories]…”.

WAG turned social media activist Marina Purkiss has been equally apoplectic at the amount of media scrutiny placed on the Labour government, tweeting “All this faux outrage, conflation and attempts to paint Labour as in the same league as the Tories is quite unbelievable… is it too much to want a media that will hold politicians equally to account? The reality of what we are seeing is anything but…”

And until this week, Labour MPs were taking a defensive stance in response to the accusations, doubling down on their position of ‘nothing to see here’, insisting that the plethora of gifts and donations received by the PM and his team were completely normal and above board, that everything has been declared properly and correctly, and that this was a ‘non-story’ being used as a distraction by the right-wing press.

However, the story has continued to grow, and public outrage over the issue has gathered pace, despite the protestations of Starmer, his cabinet, and the hypocritical mini-army of pants-wetting leftie activists on social media.

They simply do not get it.

They do not understand why the ever-growing list of gifts, freebies and donations received by Labour ministers is perceived as problematic by the public.

So, let’s attempt here to spell it out for them.

The first point to acknowledge is that, truth be told, there are a multitude of examples of Conservative ministers accepting donations and gifts when in office, stretching as far back as the memory can recall. The left has been quick to point some of these out over the past week, in some feeble attempt to justify the actions of Starmer and Co. through false-equivalence, seeking to deflect attention back to perceived wrongdoings by the previous Conservative administration.

And equally there are myriad examples of sleaze and cronyism amongst previous Labour administrations too. MPs of all parties have always accepted gifts and freebies… it is one of the perks of the job. Let’s not forget, whilst an MP salary is decent, it is far lower than many of them could earn in the private sector. The gifts and ‘freebies’ are seen as an acceptable benefit of taking a role in public office, and in principle I am not against this practice, provided it can be demonstrated that gifts are accepted with no expectation of anything in return, as would be standard ethics policy within any corporate body in the private sector.

Equally, I recognise that all parties rely on donations to fund their campaign work. That is how our political system works, and it is universally accepted to be a preferable means of funding political parties than expecting the taxpayer to do it.

The gifts and donations themselves are not the problem. They are widespread, historically relied upon by all parties, and are generally publicly accepted and reasonable (for the most part).

The true issues at play here that the left seem to be willfully ignorant to are clear as day to the rest of us. They relate to the hill upon which Keir Starmer has built the reputation of his “changed” Labour party, and repeated promises that he made to the electorate and that formed the foundation of his General Election campaign: Openness, honesty and transparency.

So, for our friends on the left who need some help understanding both the degree of media scrutiny, and the adverse public opinion in respect of these gifts and donations, let’s break it down…

1.     Hypocrisy

The first problem that Labour are facing in this regard is the blatant hypocrisy on show. You do not need to search through social media for long to find examples of Labour MPs, many of whom are now in Starmer’s cabinet, lambasting the Tories for accepting donations when they were in power.

Whilst pretty much all of Starmer’s cabinet were engaged in directing criticism at the previous Conservative government any time a gift or donation was received, the most obvious and most frequent examples come from the Twitter account of deputy PM Angela Rayner.

In February 2021, a tweet from Rayner’s Twitter account attacking then-PM Boris Johnson for hiring a photographer read:

“Instead of spending more taxpayers’ money on more photographers for the sake of his own vanity, the Prime Minister should prioritise feeding the children who will go hungry in half term next week and families facing £1,000 cuts to Universal Credit”.

Yet, earlier this week, it was revealed that, whilst the country continues to battle with a cost of living crisis, Angela “woman of the people” Rayner is herself spending £68,000 per year of tax-payers money on a ‘vanity photographer’, intended to boost her image. Staggering hypocrisy in evidence.

In May 2021, as the media probed the circumstances surrounding Mr. Johnson accepting an offer from a prominent Tory donor, Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, to stay at a luxury villa in Mustique in the Caribbean in late December 2019, Rayner again aimed her sights at the then-PM, tweeting:

“The public have a right to know who paid for his luxury holiday, how much they paid for it, and what they might expect in return for their generosity”.

And yet astonishingly one of the examples at the heart of the current Labour donor scandal is the revelation that Angela Rayner was given the use of Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli’s luxury Manhattan penthouse for five nights over New Year in 2023, free of charge.

Rayner has denied breaking the rules over the use of the Labour donor’s apartment, however it has since emerged that former Labour MP, Sam Tarry, joined her for parts of her stay, yet was not named on her parliamentary declaration. More pertinent than this administrative oversight, just as Rayner demanded of Johnson in 2021, the question must be asked of her: what might Lord Alli expect in return for his generosity?

And yet more hypocrisy evident within the annals of the deputy PM’s social media accounts, with another post from her reading: “Who do you think you are @BorisJohnson telling working class people to rely on their own efforts when you go round with a begging bowl to Tory donors to pay for your posh new wallpaper and moan that you can’t live off your £150,000 salary? Disgusting.”

All this uncovered in the context of our current Prime Minister and his wife being showered with gifts from Lord Alli, including expensive designer clothes and glasses, whilst simultaneously removing the Winter Fuel Allowance from struggling pensioners, and warning hard-working British people of a "painful" October budget on the horizon.

Starmer’s team have attempted to offer some feeble justification for the gifts to the PM from Lord Alli, which at latest count exceed £88,000, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy questioned in an interview on Sky News on 15th September on whether Sir Keir and his wife needed to have clothes donated to them when the prime minister's annual salary is around £160,000. In response, Mr. Lammy noted there is "no budget" for clothing for our prime minister, while in other countries, such as the US, there is a "substantial budget" so that when appearing on the world stage, they represent their countries well.

So, a Labour minister earning in excess of £150,000 per year, expects the public to buy into the argument that our PM, earning in excess of £160,000 per year, is unable to afford to buy decent clothes for him AND his wife, and must have them bought for them so they can look nice on the world stage? How hopelessly out of touch.

And it was not just melodramatic pearl-clutching from Labour MPs that the Conservative government had to contend with during their time in office, but a constant and relentless attack from the left-wing media also.

Time and time again, when the Johnson government were trying to navigate the country through an economically disastrous post-pandemic cost of living crisis, when any number of vitally important issues should have been the focus of the media, they caused repeated distraction by running hit-pieces on Tory MPs over matters that the majority of the public considered trivial in the context of the monumental challenges that the country was facing at the time.

And after they managed to bring down the Johnson administration in the wake of Partygate, a media-driven scandal blown out of all proportion, they continued their assault on the government throughout the premierships of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, with further ministerial resignations brought about through intense and disproportionate media pressure, including the likes of former Deputy PM Dominic Raab and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

So, for those on the left attempting to claim, as Gary Neville and Marina Purkiss have, that the media were silent over Tory “corruption” and that the level of scrutiny being applied by the media to our current PM is “absolutely incredible”, or that the media are not holding our politicians "equally to account”, I say you must have VERY short memories.

What this Labour government are having to contend with from our media now is comparable to that which the previous Conservative government experienced. The difference is… these leftie pants-wetters enjoyed it when it was being directed at the Tories. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it is their side in the firing line, they can see for the first time precisely how unpleasant and frustrating it is.

There is a distinct cognitive dissonance amongst left-wing commentators, who pressured the media to pursue stories about Tory sleaze, yet now feign faux outrage at the media giving the exact same treatment to their Labour chums.

2.     Openness and Transparency

Aside from the blatant hypocrisy on display from the likes of Angela Rayner and her fellow cabinet members, another aspect of this row that needs explaining to those on the left who remain incapable of understanding why this issue won’t just go away, as they’d like it to, is that Keir Starmer based his election campaign on the principles of openness and transparency.

He called for a “transparency revolution” when he announced his intention to stand for the party leadership in 2020. He wrote on Twitter that “there should be no power without accountability, and true accountability requires transparency”. The importance of this principle has been reiterated multiple times over the years since. A post from the Labour Party official social media account in July 2022 stated: “12 years of Tory sleaze and scandal has eroded public trust. It’s time to stop the rot. Labour is the party of honesty, transparency and accountability.”

So, there can be no doubt that the issues of transparency and accountability were fundamental to the “change” that Starmer claimed to be at the heart of his offering to the electorate. And yet, in office, his party have not been as open with the public as one might expect, considering how vitally important this principal supposedly was to their leader.

Donorgate is in direct contradiction to the core principles upon which Starmer has built his church. Notwithstanding the hypocrisy at the centre of the issue, there have been repeated question marks in respect of gifts and donations being properly declared by his ministers.

The PM himself is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli. The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the Sunday Times reported. MPs are required to register gifts and donations within 28 days. It is understood that Starmer subsequently approached the parliamentary authorities to make a late declaration after being given updated advice on what needed to be registered.

Now it's hardly crime of the century, I agree. And before the left launch into their usual diatribe of whataboutery, and pull examples of Tory MPs late declarations of interests, I accept that this is an error that previous Conservative MPs have made. However, whilst this might be an administrative oversight on Starmer’s part, it is hardly becoming of a Prime Minister who has placed so much stock in the value of transparency.

And then you have the problem of his two most senior ministers, Deputy PM Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, also being in receipt of gifts of clothes, and submitting them on the declaration of interests as “office expenses”. Quite whether this passes the threshold of tax evasion (due to claiming donations of designer clothing as a tax-deductible expense when they should have been declared as gifts i.e. not tax-deductible) is one issue.

The more relevant issue here though is the perception that these two senior ministers were trying to conceal the true nature of the donations, because they knew that the optics would not be consistent with the transparency and accountability principles about which they have repeatedly preached.

None of this is helped either by the lack of transparency from the treasury regarding the supposed £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances that the Chancellor and her fellow ministers have lectured the public about on a daily basis since taking power.

Reeves has repeatedly brandished a £22bn overspend in 2024-25 as evidence of irresponsible budget management by the Conservatives, paving the way for tax increases and spending cuts in next month’s budget.

However, a freedom of information request from the Financial Times asking for an exact breakdown of figures was declined by the Treasury, prompting many to speculate as to the credibility of the claims, or the accuracy of the figure quoted.

This may be because a small degree of scrutiny into the claims is all that is required to reveal that £9.4 billion can be accounted for by Reeves’s decision to award the public sector big pay rises. And another £8.6 billion was accounted for by ‘normal reserve requirements’, neither of which should have been surprising to the Chancellor, who had visibility of the forecast spending pressures via the OBR.

But this is yet another aspect of this story that whiffs of smoke and mirrors, of secrecy and arcane practices, and is in direct contrast to the openness and transparency that Starmer claimed his party would bring to politics.

A party simply cannot put so much stock in these principles, only then for their leader and most senior ministers to be perceived to potentially be engaging in practices that are not aligned to them.

3.     Cronyism

Thirdly is the accusation of cronyism. The Labour party have made much noise over recent years about the Tories being guilty of cronyism, most notably in respect of the award of PPE contracts during the pandemic.

And these concerns are legitimate. There should be no circumstances in which public contracts are awarded to individuals or businesses due to donations that they have made, influence that they have bought, or gifts that they have bestowed upon those in power. Government contracts should always be awarded based solely on merit, to ensure that value is being delivered to the taxpayer.

The likes of Gary Neville and Marina Purkiss seem to believe that those on the right do not believe in a meritocracy, or that they turn a blind eye to cronyism where the Tories are concerned. Their principle defence when accusations of cronyism are levelled at the Labour Party essentially sum up to “but the Tories were much worse”.

As usual, they miss the point entirely. And again, ‘whataboutery’ is not a justifiable excuse for the Labour Party’s failings. It is not good enough to simply say "But the Tories did it too", when your entire election campaign was based on a promise to the electorate to be better than what has come before.

Much of the Donorgate controversy centres around Lord Waheed Alli, and the multitude of gifts he appears to have bestowed upon the PM, his wife, and his ministerial team. It was revealed that Lord Alli was in receipt of a pass to No. 10 Downing Street, despite having no official role in Government. Which has begged the question… why did he need a pass? What was he doing in No.10, if he had no role there? Was his pass granted in return for his generous party donations, and is he influencing government decision making?

The supposed “cash for access” scandal was really what initiated this whole furore. For a Labour party that has spent years criticising the Conservatives for cronyism, it appears difficult to find a justifiable disconnect between Lord Alli donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour Party, and his being granted a pass into No.10 that he has no official need for.

The plot thickened further when it was revealed that he had donated £10,000 to the general election campaign of Liam Conlon, who is the son of Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, and the person responsible for issuing passes into No.10.

This revelation becomes even more astonishing when you consider that Sue Gray served as Director General of the Propriety and Ethics team in the Cabinet Office between 2012 and 2018. Indeed, her entire reputation has been forged in ethical practices in government, and now she is perceived to be circumventing proper procedure in order to issue a pass into the heart of government to a Labour donor who helped to fund her son’s election campaign.

And just this week, Novara Media reported that Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and two senior staffers attended the Glastonbury festival as guests of YouTube this Summer. Prior to this, Labour were promising to increase the digital service tax from 2% to 10%. The day after the festival, it emerged that Reynolds had ditched the policy.

Even Marina Purkiss was unable to defend this one, tweeting: “This appears to be very problematic...

Shut this down @UKLabour or be prepared for a very short and bumpy time in office.”

So, we reiterate, for those on the left unable to understand why this donor row remains on the front pages of the national papers, that this isn’t about turning a blind eye to the cronyism that has plagued consecutive Tory administrations. We recognise and agree that this was not acceptable, and should not have a place in politics. We simply wish the current Labour government to be held to the same standards as their predecessors.

And when Labour and their supporters have spent years lambasting the Tories over cronyism, it is reasonable to expect them to receive some criticism in return when they have demonstrably been proven to be guilty of those very same crimes. You may claim that the severity is not in the same league as the Tories, but that ignores the point. If you set a moral standard by which you judge others, then the expectations in regards to your own conduct will always exceed those standards.

And if they remain in any doubt as to how the public perceive this story, then they need look no further than the latest opinion polling, which shows Keir Starmer's approval rating at an all-time low of -26% in the wake of this ongoing scandal, a huge drop since entering office of -45 points in just 60 days. Only Liz Truss has experienced a sharper fall from grace of all Prime Ministers since 1997.

So, when those on the left whinge about the amount of scrutiny that Starmer and his Government are receiving from the media over Donorgate, when they claim that the media are being disproportionately savage towards this government, that they turned a blind eye to Tory donations, gifts and cronyism, and that this is a story blown out of proportion intended to bring down a democratically elected government, remind them of these things:

• YOU emboldened the media when you drove them into a feeding frenzy over Partygate. You celebrated when they ousted Boris Johnson from government, but they smelt blood. They were further empowered when successfully driving Dominic Raab and Suella Braverman from their ministerial posts. YOU created a monster and let it out of its cage… don’t now complain when it turns around and comes at you with claws bared.

• YOU hounded the Tories for years over the exact same things that this Labour party now stand accused of, weaponizing your social media accounts and committing your heart and soul to the mission of bringing down a democratically-elected Conservative government. Don’t now complain when your Labour party are subjected to the same treatment that you forced others to endure.

• Keir Starmer built the reputation of his “changed” Labour party on the principles of honesty and integrity. These were the core values with which he promised to rid the country of corruption in politics. You cannot expect his party to be free from the same scrutiny that he has levelled at his political opponents, when demonstrable evidence of those same wrongdoings is made public.

• The idea that it is OK for the Labour party to lie about receiving gifts, hide them from the register of interests and the public, and give special treatment to their donors, because at their heart Labour are "well intentioned"... but when the Tories do it they are evil and corrupt, simply does not wash with the public. It cannot be one rule for you, and another for the rest of us, as you repeatedly told us during the Partygate fiasco.

• The public are fed up with the rank hypocrisy displayed by our politicians, with Labour Party MPs repeatedly criticising their opponents for accepting gifts and donations, with accusations of cronyism being made at every turn, when all along they were being showered with gifts from their own wealthy donors.

• The feeble excuses being offered up by Labour ministers when questioned are making the government look pathetic: ”Lord Alli bought us clothes because he wants us to look nice..”, “…I accepted the Taylor Swift tickets because my kids really wanted to go…”, “…The PM has to have his clothes bought for him because in this country we don’t have a publicly-funded budget for clothes for our senior politicians…” The public are laughing at you.

• And finally… sure, the Tories have been guilty of many of the same offences as this Labour government. But the difference is the Tories never claimed to be paragons of virtue. When the public elected Boris Johnson into office, they didn’t do so because they believed him to be a beacon of honesty and truthfulness. He didn’t stand on a ticket of moral superiority. Keir Starmer did. It was a promise fundamental to the principles by which his “changed” Labour party would govern, and this makes the repeated failures within the first 60 days in office of his party to deliver on those standards all the more exacerbating for the public.

Look at the opinion polls and read the room.

Is that clear enough for you now, Mr. Neville?