Gifts & Politics

Christmas is on the horizon. My heart sinks every year. What to buy? Where to buy it? Will it be a good present or go straight to the present drawer or charity shop? It would help if I enjoyed shopping, but I just don't have the energy or inclination now.

MP's can accept gifts, it's not illegal so long as they follow the "Rules" & declare them. The Register of Financial Interests says the total value of gifts that Sir Keir Starmer has accepted since October 2023, (i.e. before becoming PM), is £74,905.80 - 11 football match tickets valued at thousands of pounds, as well as more than £24,000 in work clothes and accessories.There is also accommodation valued at £20,437.28 plus loans & gifts of clothing for his wife.

I can well understand that if "ordinary people" become very senior politicians there will be costs that their salaries don't meet. Sir Keir's net worth is said to be around £7.7 million, however, & it could rise to between £10m and £15m. That to me is wealthy. I would have thought he could afford his own clothes & specs. If HRH Katherine can patronise some hight street shops I would have thought Sir Keir & his wife could too.

I can also understand that actually having the time to go shopping must be extremely difficult. But then I imagine they have personal shoppers for that.

Then there is the football matches & events. I imagine that socialising at this level means that there would be a huge number of offers of free tickets. After all it does your event no end of good if the PM attends. There is a "quid pro quo". But is it a good image when real fans & supporters have to fork out vast amounts of money they probably can ill afford to follow their clubs? Given the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, again are the optics of accepting those good?

The path is littered with elephant traps for politicians. In a way I don't want them to be spending their time worrying about minutiae like this. I would rather they ran the country effectively. But they do have well paid advisors & civil servants. I would expect them to be speaking truth to power about the advisibility of accepting gifts. 

I would also expect people who are at the top of government to have the common sense to understand that if it wouldn't look good in the headlines of the Daily Mirror or Daily Mail they probably shouldn't do it. Especially not when they are telling us on a daily basis that things will only get worse for all of us.