Why Keir Starmer’s freebies have cut through to the public

Good morning. The row about freebies that dominated the Labour party’s conference is now casting a shadow over Keir Starmer’s visit to the UN General Assembly, an annual gathering of world leaders.

Under the spotlight

There are, I think, essentially, two different things going on when it comes to the running story about freebies for MPs:

1) Gifts of hospitality that are entirely within the rules for British politicians and their staff, but would be declared outside the bounds of the gifting policy at most modern workplaces. Tickets to Arsenal away games or to see Taylor Swift, say, would usually clear the value at which a gift has to be automatically refused at many organisations.

For example, as one Inside Politics reader pointed out to me, KPMG forbids staff from accepting any gifts or hospitality from suppliers other than those with low intrinsic value, such as paper or pens. Most charities, including the ones that many Labour MPs used to work for, have specific thresholds at which a gift must automatically be refused.

I think part of why public opinion is so strongly against MPs receiving freebies is because anyone in a modern workplace knows these gifts would be out of bounds.

Although all parties have done it, and it is within the rules, I think this is one of those things that once it hits the news becomes impossible to defend. The best approach for Labour is to say “yes, these freebies were within the rules, but we recognise that parliament’s rules were wrong and do not reflect modern corporate behaviour”, and to draw up a better alternative.

2) Ordinary favours that happen all the time outside of politics, are considered wholly run-of-the-mill, but are seen as scandalous because of people’s general low opinion of politicians and because they are, rightly, expected to declare essentially any or all free gifts. For example, in the latest story, Keir Starmer borrowed the apartment of Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli and moved his family in so that his son could revise and sit his GCSEs without having to pass through or be disturbed by protesters or the press outside the family home.

“Mother or father gets new and disruptive job that interferes with child’s schooling, child stays with family friend” is a pretty boring story. (As indeed is “mother or father moves to new place of work and also stays there, alone while the family completes their term”.)

The only difference is that usually the new job involves uprooting the whole family geographically, as opposed to the disruption of having your family home become the place where the presumptive next prime minister lives.

To be honest, I don’t really think this is in any way a story and it is only in the news because of Labour’s ill-judged response to the revelations concerning his decision to accept £16,200 in clothes and initial failure to specify the nature of the donation in the register of MPs’ interests.

But unless or until the government finds a way to draw a line under that first group of stories, it will continue to be dogged both by rows over freebies and favours.

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