A Telegraph analysis reveals that Labour Cabinet ministers have accepted over £800,000 in donations and gifts so far this year. Here’s an excerpt:
David Lammy, the Foreign Secetary, has received the most since the beginning of 2024, having accepted more than £150,000 worth. This included £2,500 worth of tickets to see Tottenham Hotspur, with the use of a hospitality box.
The largest sum donated to him was from Labour Together, a Starmerite think tank, which donated £40,440 for the “provision of research and writing services”.
Labour Cabinet ministers have accepted £753,017 in donations and £90,853 in gifts since the beginning of the year, according to the analysis of the members’ register of interests.
Mr. Lammy is followed by Wes Streeting, who received £117,000 in donations and gifts, among them four tickets and hospitality to see Taylor Swift at Wembley costing £1,160.
The Health Secretary’s biggest donation was valued at £48,000 in four instalments from OPD Group Ltd, a company controlled by Peter Hearn, a recruitment mogul and one of Labour’s biggest donors.
He also accepted £13,000 “towards staffing costs” while Labour was in opposition, declared in April, from Kevin Craig, a businessman who later stood to become the Labour MP in Suffolk Coastal.
Mr. Craig was later forced to stand down after it emerged he placed a bet on his constituency outcome in the General Election, betting that the Tories would win. Mr. Streeting returned his donation from Mr. Craig.
Among Angela Rayner’s £104,000 in gifts and donations since the start of the year was £2,230 for clothing from ME+EM, a British luxury fashion brand.
Donations and gifts to politicians have come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks after Sir Keir Starmer became embroiled in a row over funding clothes donated to him and his wife by Lord Alli.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Mail reveals that Bridget Phillipson squirmed while defending her £14,000 birthday bash funded by a millionaire Labour peer during a grilling on Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
Stop Press 2: Angela Rayner is facing fresh questions over a freebie holiday to New York paid for by a Labour donor, according to the Mail.
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I’d like to see what Reform have accepted or rejected. I’m a member, we cannot be seen to be at the same trough as Free Gear Starmer and antisemitic racist Lammy. I would hope our MP’s have rejected every single Bung.
This Bunga Lunga non-Government with no mandate must go. Let’s hope we aren’t going with them.
There is a big difference between cash donations or the gift of campaign materials for elections which all parties need compared with personal donations. Personal donations should be avoided and especially large ones from donors who might be seen to seek policy changes or other benefits (such as access to the center of government in No.10) and recipients who have large incomes (such as 2TK).
Unfortunately we have learned not to be surprised by the behaviour of this Government and its Ministers but we ought to be outraged.
Labour Cabinet ministers have accepted over £800,000 in donations and gifts so far this year
But these are not presents given out of love – they are favours administered in the expectation return favours. Bribes would be another word for them.
It’s about time the government funded political parties and banned all donations/gifts to parties or individual politicians. It might only need £15-20million, which is pretty much irrelevant in terms of overall government spending. This could be divided between all parties in amounts that are proportional to the share of the vote they got at the last election or parties could be given £x for every individual (not union block membership in the case of Labour) member they have.
To paraphrase Samuel Johnson:
“Public Office is the last refuge of the Scoundrel”
How any business can support the high tax, anti- business Labour Party baffles me. Reading this, I’m now an ex-customer of Me+Em, not just for their support of Labour, but – who wants to be seen wearing the same clothes as Angela Rayner?!
These donations to politicians would probably all qualify as tax deductions by those companies and persons doing the donating. This in effect means these donations are being subsidized by the tax payer. More free money.