Tories challenge other Labour ministers to follow Keir Starmer in paying back donations
Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer made the surprise announcement that he has paid back £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality, including Taylor Swift tickets and rented clothing for his wife, received since he became prime minister. The news overshadowed reports about what happened on his visit to Brussels to meet the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen (also important – here’s our story), but No 10 felt they had to put the news out yesterday because the donations were all being revealed in the latest update to the Commons register of members’ interests published yesterday.
However, as is often the case when a politician under pressure over ethics/transparency makes a concession to critics/the media/public opinion, Starmer has now opened himself up to a whole new bout of questions. The Conservative party (which has a lot of experience of donation scandals) is on the case, and last night it issued this statement.
Day after day more and more comes out about the scandal at the top of Keir Starmer’s government. This scandal has become a complete distraction from the job of governing.
It appears Starmer will only be transparent when his back’s against the wall. This announcement today poses more questions than it answers. Why did Starmer take these freebies in the first place? Why haven’t Angela Rayner and other senior party members not paid back donations?
Starmer said yesterday that his government would be drawing up new “principles” to cover political donations and No 10 indicated that Starmer was not saying it was always unacceptable for ministers to accept donations.
This article by Peter Walker looks at some of the other revelations in yesterday’s updated register of members’ interests.
We’re likely to get more on this as the day goes on.
Parliament is still in recess, and there is not a lot in the diary. Boris Johnson’s memoir is out today; it has already been serialised extensively in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, but today journalists will get their chance to find the bits that Mail might not have been keen to highlight. There are homelessness statistics out. And David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is due to visit Dublin with Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister dealing with Brexit-related issues.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
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Key events
Britain to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius ending years of dispute
The UK has agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s last African colony, Haroon Siddique reports.
Latest figures show renting crisis driving up homelessness, campaigners says
Today’s homelessness figures highlight the need for the government to press on with banning no-fault evicitions, campaigners say.
The figures show a 4.6% increase in the number of households in England threatened with homelessness because an assured shorthold tenancy has come to an end.
The last government promised to abolish section 21 evictions (so-called because section 21 of the Housing Act allows no-fault evictions with two months’ notice), but it never implemented this promise and Labour is now doing this with its renters’ rights bill.
Tom Darling, director of the Renters’ Reform Coalition, said:
It’s frankly ridiculous section 21 still exists – we’re approaching 6 years since the previous government first promised to abolish it, while every indicator on the dashboard has been going in the wrong direction. And now we discover homelessness caused by evictions is up almost 5% on the previous year. It’s clear from today’s data that that the renting crisis is driving the homelessness crisis …
Amid this escalating social crisis, the government’s renters’ rights bill is absolutely crucial. This legislation is a significant improvement on the last government’s effort. As drafted it will already make a difference for a lot of people.
Campaigners express alarm after figures show 10% ‘surge’ in families needing help with homelessness in England
The number of households in England needing help with homelessness rose by more than 10% last year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
In a report out today with homelessness figures for the financial year ending in March 2024, it says “initial assessments were made for 358,370 households in England in 2023-24, up 10.4% from the previous year”. The report says:
146,430 households were assessed as being threatened with homelessness and therefore owed a prevention duty in 2023-24. This is a 3.1% increase from 2022-23. The increase from 2022-23 has been influenced by a 4.6% increase, to 57,340 households, in those threatened with homelessness due to the end of an assured shorthold tenancy. …
178,560 households were assessed as homeless and therefore owed a relief duty in 2023-24. This is up 12.3% from 2022-23. Similar to increases in prevention duties, this also has been influenced by an 8.9% increase, to 22,160 households, in those threatened with homelessness due to the end of an assured short hold tenancy.
The homelessness figures cover familes that get help from local authorities either as a result of the prevention duty (an obligation to help a household threatened with homelessness) or the relief duty (an obligation to help households already homeless). These figures apply to people who get placed in temporary accommodation, such as B&B rooms. These are the the same as the rough sleeping figures, which cover people sleeping on the streets.
Commenting on the figures, Rick Henderson, CEO at Homeless Link, a body representing homlessness services, said:
Everyone needs a safe and secure place to live, but alarmingly the number of people being threatened with or forced into homelessness continues to surge, exposing people’s lives to trauma. Vital homelessness support services are at breaking point and many councils – spending the lion’s share of their budgets on temporary accommodation – are facing bankruptcy.
Urgent action is needed. Building social housing and the promised cross-government strategy should reduce homelessness in the long-term, while the renters rights bill will help prevent homelessness among people renting privately. But a cliff-edge in homelessness funding is looming in March 2025. The government must therefore use the autumn budget to provide financial certainty for homelessness services.
John McTernan, who was political secretary to Tony Blair when Blair was PM, was also on the Today programme this morning discussing Keir Starmer’s record with freebies, and he said he agreed with John Penrose (see 9.52am) that the problem was not rules being broken, but public perception. He explained:
Politicians have to not only act by the rules, they have to act by community standards.
There’s no doubt in my mind that voters are angry, the community’s angry, about about what they see as double standards.
And the absolute fundamental rule of politics is the voters are never wrong. Rule one of politics is the votes are never wrong. Rule two, if you’re angry because you think the votes are wrong, please refer to rule number one.
McTernan said people were angry because stories about donations have coincided with the government cutting winter fuel payments for pensioners.
The backdrop to every single thing that the Labour party has done in government has been its first action to take them into fuel allowance away from 10 million pensioners. That has set the tone for everything, and it’s the backdrop for for how actions are seen.
People see that you’ve taken this from 10 million people, and taking that for free from businesses.
That’s the truth. There’s anger out there, and behaviour has to change.
On the Today programme this morning John Penrose, a former Tory MP who was the government’s anti-corruption tsar, said that he thought the controversy about Keir Starmer accepting donations showed that the rules probably needed tightening. But he also argued that the problem was not related to rules being breached, but political perception. He said:
I think that the rules aren’t bad, although they need to be strengthened a bit …
But this isn’t really about what the rules say. This is about whether or not we’ve got someone who’s not behaving like a lawyer, but rather behaving like politician who understands why people are upset.
And the rules don’t really cover the idea of, ‘Isn’t there a double standard here, for example, between living the high life, you and your ministers, while you’re taking money from from pensioners’.
Those aren’t really ever going to be covered by any set of rules you could imagine.
That’s a question of political judgment, political judgment, political understanding and being in tune with what the rest of the country is actually thinking when you’re sitting there at No 10.
Tories challenge other Labour ministers to follow Keir Starmer in paying back donations
Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer made the surprise announcement that he has paid back £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality, including Taylor Swift tickets and rented clothing for his wife, received since he became prime minister. The news overshadowed reports about what happened on his visit to Brussels to meet the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen (also important – here’s our story), but No 10 felt they had to put the news out yesterday because the donations were all being revealed in the latest update to the Commons register of members’ interests published yesterday.
However, as is often the case when a politician under pressure over ethics/transparency makes a concession to critics/the media/public opinion, Starmer has now opened himself up to a whole new bout of questions. The Conservative party (which has a lot of experience of donation scandals) is on the case, and last night it issued this statement.
Day after day more and more comes out about the scandal at the top of Keir Starmer’s government. This scandal has become a complete distraction from the job of governing.
It appears Starmer will only be transparent when his back’s against the wall. This announcement today poses more questions than it answers. Why did Starmer take these freebies in the first place? Why haven’t Angela Rayner and other senior party members not paid back donations?
Starmer said yesterday that his government would be drawing up new “principles” to cover political donations and No 10 indicated that Starmer was not saying it was always unacceptable for ministers to accept donations.
This article by Peter Walker looks at some of the other revelations in yesterday’s updated register of members’ interests.
We’re likely to get more on this as the day goes on.
Parliament is still in recess, and there is not a lot in the diary. Boris Johnson’s memoir is out today; it has already been serialised extensively in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, but today journalists will get their chance to find the bits that Mail might not have been keen to highlight. There are homelessness statistics out. And David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is due to visit Dublin with Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister dealing with Brexit-related issues.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
