„Die Öffentlichkeit erwartete von uns, dass wir blitzsauber sind … jetzt denken sie, wir seien alle gleich“: Wie Freebiegate Labour erschütterte
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/27/the-public-expected-us-to-be-squeaky-clean-now-they-think-were-all-the-same-how-freebiegate-rocked-labour
Von 1DarkStarryNight
49 Comments
Starmer lacks a backbone. He should simply have introduced an PM allowance to ensure future PMs didn’t have to rely on hand out of billionaires. It would have been unpopular but his reputation would have been damaged less.
Multi millionaires do not become multi millionaires by giving away their money. Perhaps Lord Ali is different, but usually there is something expected in return.
Given what we previously had the whole “scandal” was blown out of proportion.
Labour need to stop beating itself up over and over again, this is all small fry nonsense that the media whipped up because it’s got a sweet tooth for drama.
They ARE all the same. And it looks as though the British Public are going to be idiots once again at the next election and vote in the biggest grifter to date. Democracy is dead unless a new party of respected, honourable, honest, qualified, capable and dedicated politicians step up to the plate. And what chance of that?
It wasn’t even that much.
He could have said “these are in the rules, but we hear your concerns and we should look at the rules again.”
I reluctantly voted Labour just to get the Tory bastards out and I set a very low bar of just play with a straight bat and be vaguely competent. It didn’t feel like it was too much to ask .
Fuck me the press really did a number on Labour equating a few Taylor Swift tickets with Sunak’s £hundreds of thousands of free helicopters- who then got awarded a multi-million pond contract.
*Some Labour figures, however, remain concerned that Starmer still believes that he has been treated unfairly, and has struggled to see how – because he broke no rules – he has done anything wrong.*
This is said a couple of times in the article – but also *In mid-September, it emerged that Starmer had initially failed to declare £5,000 of gifts from Alli used to buy clothes for his wife*
Reeves and Rayner also didn’t disclose their donations received properly – having to correct them from office expenses to clothes.
The information came out over days [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/27/peer-gave-keir-starmer-more-clothes-worth-16000-declared-as-money-for-private-office](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/27/peer-gave-keir-starmer-more-clothes-worth-16000-declared-as-money-for-private-office)
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader)
and Rayner was even saying ‘all MPs do it’ and claiming Lord Alli was giving her stuff as a friend (not as a senior person in Labour).
It was not a good start.
The public need to keep demanding better from our politicians. We have to accept they are not perfect and will make mistakes, but they can’t just get away with saying ‘Well, we are better than the other lot, look how bad they are’.
I wonder if the press will hold the Tories to this standard if they ever get back into power.
They didn’t expect you to be squeaky clean, they *wanted* you to be squeaky clean.
After 14 years of political degeneracy, you actually had to be the change and not just talk about it.
I know that’s unfair but, yes, we hold you to a higher standard because the previous benchmark was ‘none’.
Both sides! Except if you bother to look the scale is not even close
Not all politicians are the same, but they do their hardest to look like they are.
How hard is it, to just not take freebies when you have a job that signals so much to the public?
Tax the billionaires then maybe we’ll take them seriously
Honestly I absolutely expected MPs working with Peter Mandelson to behave *exactly* like this because that’s the way he’s behaved over his entire career.
The public think labour following the rules and declaring gifts received is exactly the same as the Tories breaking the rules and not declaring gifts because they’re fucking idiots who believe anything the media tells them.
Our media is 80% owned by Rupert Murdoch, Viscount Rothermere, and the Barclay brothers. All Tory donors, all either foreign or claiming non-dom status.
There is no fair trial by media in this country. Whoever is Labour leader will always be “just the same” as any other party leader, or have no backbone or be a communist, because the working class having nobody to rally around is a narrative that plays directly into their hands.
Keir Starner is far from the perfect leader, but he is still vastly cleaner than Sunak or Farage.
I don’t know a single person who gave a fuck they got suits and Arsenal tickets. Was this actually a big deal or is this the press making it big again?
Idk maybe I don’t talk to enough idiots
It’s quite amusing that Labour lost the next election about 8 weeks into their term, think that beats John Major losing ‘97 on Black Wednesday.
If you run a 3 year campaign exposing the corruption within the torrids of course we expect you to be most holy it’s what should be expected of politicians anyway or were slip into voting in a sex offender into office twice
Tories burn BILLIONS of tax payer money on their friends companies and no one says a word.
Labour get a few 100 thousand in cheeky gifts and everyone loses their minds.
Literally 4 orders of magnitude.
I still don’t get how this freebie thing became such a scandal. Granted they shouldn’t have been accepting gifts but we’ve seen the conservatives do so much worse. Why is Labour held to a higher standard?
As far as recent ethical breaches in government are concerned, this is a minor offence.
Do i think it’s a good look? No. Would I expect the leader of the Labour party to hold them self to a higher standard? Yes. Do I think this is proof that Kier is a bought and paid for corporate tool? Most certainly not.
‘The public expected us to be squeaky clean … now they think we’re all the same’ this comment is hilariously out of touch. They are all the same, and all politicians are crooks, anyway. are some phrases you have heard hundreds of times if you’ve been around anyone from a politically disillusioned background.
I’ve seen it happen in the States, The Democrats were constantly bickering over how to upkeep political norms and Ethical standards when the real concern should have been uniting against the Trumps and Musks who feel no sense of responsibility at all.
Do something about it then. It’s not too late or beyond impossibility to act now.
Should have held his hands up instead of digging in. To come in with the promise of being honest/accountable etc etc this just reminded me of his out of touch (and Draconian) stance during COVID. Can’t read a room and never will.
People who think they’re “all the same” have been told that by the press and not thought for themselves. Michelle Mone bought a yacht with money purloined through COVID support. Keir Starmer went to the football. In no world are those two actions remotely the same in severity. Yes, Labour have stupidly opened themselves up to charges of scandal, but they have done nothing to show that they are Tory-level thieves and scumbags to date.
Sadly I think it is more incompetence than corruption… but ‘now they think we”re all the same’ still holds true.
Free clothes are the socks you get at xmas, not something around £5,000. The problem is you’re dealing with people so immersed in corruption, lobbying and bribery, they couldn’t tell you when they stepped over the line, because they no longer see the line.
Early tests indicate you are, in fact, all the same.
Right wing are upset about a pair of glasses but cheer on Elon buying our democracy through Farage
Make it make sense
With absolutely no respect, the public didn’t, the older ones remember all the numerous Labour scandals through the years from Lord Kagen (look it up) onwards.
So… No laws or parliamentary rules/standards broken, no evidence of any quid pro quo and no actual legitimate criticism beyond the optics?
No I expected you to be exactly the same as the tories, and now I think you’re exactly the same as the tories.
No MP or PM should be allowed to take any gifts or freebies. That way there would be no issues simple as that
Because they are all the same. Both the Tories and Labour force us into keeping FPTP because it perpetuates their duopoly of power sharing between them.
Labour under Starmer are undemocratic, authoritarian, and establishment stooges.
We need electoral reform to a system of Proportional Representation, ideally STV. Only then will we be truly represented in Westminster!
We expect you to deliver the manifesto.
When you sit there doing nothing (except for occasionally doing the opposite of what they promised) people get bored and frustrated.
Then they are all ears for news, and since the media legitimately cannot report on actual progress on any actual policy, they report on what handbag the PMs wife is wearing and who paid for it.
Anyone who expected Labour to be squeaky clean hasn’t been paying attention.
Their biggest financiers were Unions (beset by their own series of corruption scandals) and private equity billionaires (who successfully ensured the carried interest tax loophole remained open).
Starmer himself may be clean but as a whole they’re no better than any other flavour of politician.
Starmer and his lot foolishly thought they would get the same ‘look the other way’ attitude that the Tories did from the press because they stomped out the left.
No Keith, you were always going to be fighting tooth and nail. This will be a one stint government before we go into a Tory/reform coalition.
Sadly I think it’s a case of ‘he who lives by the sword dies by the sword ‘. While there was a Conservative government in place the Labour party picked over every thing in the hope of finding something to damage the Conservatives. With a change of government the Conservatives are now doing the same. The nett effect is that the nations perception of all politicians is damaged. I have the pleasure of knowing two MPs quite well (a Conservative and a Labour) and they are both good people who genuinely want to serve but they are besmirched by these tactics.
Given they’re continuing to prop up drug gangs by keeping cannabis illegal, yeah it’s more of the same.
All politicians are corrupt liars sooooo…. I don’t see how anyone could be “shocked”
Tbf when almost the only thing folk have heard from labour is ‘tory sleaze’ it would probably have been a wise move not to have become immediately sleazy after being elected. Also Starmer is basically a Tory as are half the labour MPs… The majority of MPs in general literally are effectively the same…
Don’t accept gifts or freebies at all. That’s a price politicians should have to pay.
We’re not the same your a millionaire, in a job with unlimited expense account, offered freebies galore n when you leave you’ll be made a lord while us working class have to choose to eat or heat after you draconian policies no we are not the same
“Obeying the rules” is a poor defence when it was shown the rules were shit back in duck gate
I think most politicians are in it for their own personal gain. Representing their constituents who put them in their position of trust seems to be the last thing on their mind.
We knew they were all the same the whole time, who didn’t
Politicians don’t need to be squeaky clean role models. They just need to be very competent at their jobs. Take a free ticket to a concert. Have an affair. Smoke. Just manage the economy properly and no one will care.
Why are we adding “gate” to the end of every scandal and making it a thing. Can we stop this?
It originated with Watergate. Which wasn’t a fucking scandal about water. It was about the Watergate office.
Seriously people were expecting something from labour?
Seriously?